Items tagged with Acquisition
Nearly one year ago, we told you about Western Digital's plan to acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Now, that acquisition is officially complete. The deal is effective March 8, 2012 and involved $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of WDC common stock valued at approximately $0.9 billion. These shares give Hitachi, Ltd. approximately 10 percent of outstanding WDC shares. As part of the deal, Hitachi, Ltd. also has the right to appoint two individuals to WD's board of directors. The new WD plans to operate with WD Technologies (WD) and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries. WD(R) Completes Acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Creates the Industry's Deepest Technology...
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Both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission gave Google their respective blessings to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, the two agencies said in separate announcements. Taking it one step further, the DoJ also said it would allow Apple, Microsoft, and Research In Motion (RIM) to purchase certain Nortel patents, and cleared the way for Apple to acquire certain Novell patents. "After a thorough review of the proposed transactions, the Antitrust Division has determined that each acquisition is unlikely to substantially lessen competition and has closed these three investigations," the DoJ said in a statement. "In all of the transactions, the division conducted an in-depth...
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Google has been trying to acquire Motorola Mobility and its thousands of patents for months. Soon, according to a Reuters report, the acquisition should receive approved from the European Commission and U.S. Justice Department. A decision about whether to approve the deal or ask for more review is expected as early as Monday. Even so, Google has to wait for approval from China, which can string the process out for months if it so chooses. Google CEO Larry Page (Photo credit: Business Insider) Assuming the deal does work out, Google will snag a small mountain of patents; in today’s tech world, where companies sue each other for alleged patent infringement with astounding frequency, the guy...
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The proposed merger between Google and Motorola is one step closer to completion. Recently, Motorola's stockholders voted with an overwhelming majority to approve the proposed merger with Google. At a recently held Special Meeting of Stockholders, approximately 99% of the voting shares voted in favor of the merger agreement. Approximately 74% of Motorola Mobility’s total outstanding shares of common stock were represented in this vote. The merger is still subject to various closing conditions that could delay or prevent the merger, but assuming all goes well, the merger is expected to close in early 2012. Motorola Mobility Stockholders Approve Merger with Google LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. –...
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Yesterday’s announcement that LSI had entered into an agreement to acquire SandForce was interesting to say the least. The two companies have obvious synergy and should be able to leverage each other's resources to produce some powerful and innovative storage products. However, due to LSI’s strong position in the enterprise space and SandForce’s more consumer oriented position, along with the announcement’s minimal discussion of mainstream or desktop-targeted products, some questions lingered as to how LSI planned to market SandForce products moving forward. After all, dozens of manufacturers that specifically target enthusiasts and desktop users offer products built around...
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Cisco's at it again. With "at it" meaning "buying companies." While the company's killing of Flip Video will be the one that everyone remembers from 2011, they're also picking up BNI Video. Headquartered in Boxborough, Mass., BNI Video supplies service providers with two major video products that offer video back-office and content delivery network (CDN) analytic capabilities. The acquisition will purportedly advance the capabilities of Cisco's Videoscape TV platform, which allows service providers to deliver compelling video experiences to any device over any Internet Protocol (IP) network. Marthin De Beer, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Emerging Business Group, said this...
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Rhapsody announced plans to purchase Napster from Best Buy. Although the full details of the deal have not been released, we do know that Best Buy will retain a minority stake in Rhapsody. The deal is expected to close on or around November 30 of this year. As a result of the deal, the subscriber bases of the two largest on-demand premium music services will be combined. Rhapsody is co-owned by Real Networks and MTV Networks. Rhapsody to Acquire Napster America's largest on-demand music service to add Napster's subscriber base to extend leadership position SEATTLE, Oct. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Rhapsody, the nation's largest premium on-demand music service, today announced that it has signed an...
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Hewlett Packard is shopping for a buyer to take its PC business off its hands, and there has been plenty of speculation as to which company might swoop in. One name that keeps coming up is Samsung, but that's now looking less likely than ever since Samsung CEO Geosing Choi said his company isn't interested. "To put to rest any speculation on the issue, I would like to definitively state that Samsung Electronics will not acquire Hewlett Packard's PC business," Choi wrote in a note to Wired.com. His written rhetoric doesn't leave much wriggle room for further speculation, so it's safe to take Samsung out of the running (although nothing would surprise us anymore after all the big headlines in tech...
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If ever there was an iconic symbol of the original mobile phone handset, it would have to be the bat wings of Motorola. From the StarTAC to the RAZR, Motorola has been at the forefront of the technology virtually since the beginning. Though Motorola Mobility has been struggling to keep up in the ultra-competitive smartphone landscape recently, the company was quick to embrace the Android operating system for its entire product line of smartphones and in fact founded the Open Source Handset Alliance back in 2007. If you're the type that likes to tinker with custom ROMs and such, you have Motorola to thank in-part for the privilege. Perhaps then, today's huge announcement may...
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Information Week on late Friday afternoon posted about a deal between Microsoft and Nvidia that would give the Redmond software maker first dibs on acquiring Nvidia if a third party offers to buy the graphics chip maker for 30 percent or more of its outstanding shares. The deal, which Information Week quoted in a recent SEC filing dated May 27th, gives Microsoft the exclusive right to match such offers, and/or essentially veto attempts by its rivals to acquire Nvidia. That's an interesting position for Microsoft to be in, though hardly a new one. Missing from Information Week's quote of the "Risk Factors" section of Nvidia's most recent 10K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission...
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They say everything's bigger in Texas, and maybe that includes acquisitions too. How else do you explain Texas Instruments (which is located in Texas) spending a staggering $6.5 billion acquiring National Semiconductor? That breaks down to $25 per share in what amounts to an all-cash transaction. Here's what TI had to say about the purchase. "This acquisition is about strength and growth," said Rich Templeton, TI's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "National has an excellent development team, and its products combined with our own can offer customers an analog portfolio of unmatched depth and breadth. In recent years, National's management team has done an outstanding job of improving...
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Western Digital plans to acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $4.3 billion. The resulting company will retain the Western Digital name. By combining these companies, WD says the end result will be a “customer-focused storage company” that will offer the industry’s broadest product lineup. Some of the benefits WD expects to gain from the acquisition include enhanced R&D capabilities, comprehensive market coverage, and scale that will further enhance the cost structure. Western Digital to Acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Combination of Hard Drive Companies Will Create Industry's Broadest Product Portfolio...
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Intel, the largest chip maker on this or any other known planet, cleared at least one major hurdle in its attempt to acquire security firm McAfee. That hurdle? The Federal Trade Commission, which has given the proposed $7.68 billion deal its stamp of approval. "The Federal Trade Commission has concluded its review of the proposed McAfee transaction and has cleared it. We are continuing to work with the staff at the European Commission as they continue their review," Kevin Sellers, Intel VP of Investor Relations, said in a statement. The FTC's approval comes just days after mutterings that European regulators might not be too keen on the deal because of antitrust concerns. According to a report...
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If you owned a deal-of-the-day website, how hard would it be to turn down a $6 billion buyout offer from Google? Probably really difficult, but Groupon didn't bat an eye when it told Google to take a hike. That's hard to fathom. According to reports, each board member would have received millions, if not hundreds of millions by signing on the dotted line. And what about Groupon co-founders Brady Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky? They would have cashed out with $600 million (Keywell) and $1.8 billion (Lefkosfky). So how on earth did they manage to turn down the offer? Maybe they didn't. According to a report in Business Insider, Google's Marissa Mayer hinted that the deal may not have been nixed, but...
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