LSI Logic acquires Agere for $4 billion
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(InfoWorld) - Semiconductor manufacturer LSI Logic said Monday it would acquire Agere Systems, creating a combined chip-making company with enough scale to compete for greater market share in segments including hard disks and digital media players. LSI, of Milipitas, California, will trade stock worth $4 billion for Agere, of Allentown, Penn. The move will push LSI to double its size, growing to 9,100 employees and an estimated $3.5 billion in annual revenue. LSI hopes to use the deal to extend its market in storage and consumer electronics by adding Agere's expertise in storage, mobility and networking, according to a statement by Abhi Talwalkar, president and chief executive of LSI. Agere's top 10 customers are Apple, Cisco, Hitachi, Lucent, Maxtor, NEC, Nokia, Samsung, Seagate, and Toshiba, the company's Web site said. The two companies will also be more streamlined, saving $125 million per year starting in 2008 through "increased efficiencies in manufacturing and operating expenses." The companies did not say whether that plan included layoffs. LSI expects the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2007, pending approval by regulators and by the shareholders of both companies.
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LSI Logic Corp. , a maker of  chips found in DVD recorders and hard drives, said on Monday it  would buy Agere Systems Inc.  for about $4 billion in  stock, broadening LSI's reach into the market for mobile phone  chips.
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc ,  the No. 2 supplier of computer processors, said on Monday it  would acquire graphics chip maker ATI Technologies Inc. for  $5.4 billion in cash and stock to expand its product mix and  grow market share as it battles Intel Corp. .
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(InfoWorld) - The European Commission approved Fujitsu's planned acquisition of French computer services group GFI Informatique, even though the deal is uncertain to materialize. "The planned deal won't have a significant impact on competition," the Commission said Tuesday in a statement. Fujitsu-controlled FS Participation SAS bid $530 million for GFI. The move is part of Fujitsu's aim to boost its presence in key European markets. Fujitsu competes against IBM and Electronic Data Systems in IT services. It hopes that acquiring GFI will help it expand into France and Spain, while the group's global channels help GFI gain contracts abroad, Fujitsu said. Fujitsu's pursuit of GFI has hit a snag, however, as private-equity firm and stakeholder Apax Partners increased its stake in the French firm. Fujitsu may be forced to raise its offer or seek another target in France or Spain. The bid for GFI follows a string of acquisitions by Fujitsu that includes German system developer TDS Informationstechnologie in January for about â¬100 million ($136 million). The company hopes to boost European sales by 8 percent a year over the next three years, helped by mergers and acquisitions.
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(InfoWorld) - IT distributor Agilysys Inc. continued its strategy of growing by acquisition, announcing plans to buy Innovativ Systems Design Inc., a major U.S. reseller of Sun Microsystems Inc.'s servers and storage products. It's the third purchase in six months for Agilysys, whose ultimate goal is to double in size to become a US$1 billion business within two years. Agilysys will pay US$100 million in cash for Innovativ. The deal, announced Friday, also includes a provision for the vendor to make an extra maximum payment of $90 million provided the Innovativ business achieves specific financial targets in the first two years after purchase. Agilysys hopes to close the acquisition on or around July 1. With headquarters in Edison, New Jersey, Innovativ is a systems integrator and reseller of servers, enterprise storage management and services, with a particular emphasis on the financial services and telecommunications industries. "The acquisition of Innovativ will establish a new and significant relationship between Sun and Agilysys," Arthur Rhein, Agilysys chairman, CEO and president, said in a release. He noted that the company already resells products from Sun's storage rivals EMC Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. and its server competitors HP and IBM. Once the deal is complete, the firm will establish a new Agilysys Sun technology solutions business unit to be headed by Innovativ's current CEO Tony Mellina. In recent months, Agilysys has bought Visual One Systems, a developer and seller of Windows-based software for the hospitality industry, and Stack Computer, a technology integrator that focuses on high-availability storage from EMC and customers in the health-care, financial services and manufacturing industries. At the same time, Agilysys divested itself of its KeyLink systems distribution business assets to Arrow Electronics Inc. in March for $485 million in cash. The offloading of the KeyLink operation is in line with Agilysys' aim to concentrate exclusively on selling technology directly to corporate and public-sector customers. Factoring in the acquisitions of both Stack and Innovativ, Agilysys will expand annual revenue to over $800 million, on its way to becoming a $1 billion operation in 2009 and a $1.5 billion business come 2010. Â
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The chipmaker just meets expectations, while turning in its highest ever fourth-quarter revenue. Stock hit hard in after-hours trading.
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Ditching products, beefing services LogicaCMG has sold its telecoms products division to a private equity consortium for Â£265m.â¦
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PEC Solutions Inc. said yesterday it had acquired AC Technologies Inc. for $46.7 million in cash plus $3 million in employee bonuses and payouts. Both companies are government contractors based in Fairfax.
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Acer Inc., the world's fourth-largest computer vendor by unit sales, plans to acquire U.S. computer maker Gateway Inc. for $710 million, the Taiwanese company said Monday.
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IRVINE, Calif. -- Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ:BRCM) today announced that it has settled all outstanding litigation with Agere Systems Inc.
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Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) acquired Storability Inc. on Thursday for an undisclosed sum in an attempt to boost the storage management and monitoring software delivery capabilities of its ILM (information lifecycle management) portfolio.
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(InfoWorld) - After a busy two yearsÂ reorganizing LSI, the new leadership of the company, which includes several former Intel executives, is ready to do battle in the competitive markets for storage and networking chips. LSI is one of the first major companies to finish reorganizing amid a broad consolidation in the chip sector caused by rising research and development costs. The rising costs means that size matters: Companies need to make enough money to keep up with higher costs for chip designs and upgrades. Development budgets are rising as the size of transistors and other parts on a chip shrink, said Jeff Richardson, executive vice president of the Network and Storage Products Group at LSI. The size of components on chips, and the spaces between them, has already hit 45-nanometers, a microscopic size thousands of times thinner than a human hair. Without the budgets to continue investing in the machines and research needed to continue the development of chip products, companies will wither. One of the reasonsÂ LSI acquired Agere SystemsÂ late last year is because the networking and storage chips made by the two companies are a much larger, more viable business combined than separate, said Richardson. LSI is already ready to move forward, which is saying a lot since it has continued to buy or sell companies and divisions for the past several months. The last major deal was theÂ sale of its mobile phone products business to Infineon TechnologiesÂ last month for $450 million, a deal that will likely give Infineon the size to compete for third place in the mobile handset chip industry. LSI sold off its consumer products division in July, signed contract manufacturing agreements to allow it to slough off factories and workers, and has bought two chip makers over the past year, including StoreAge Networking Technologies. So far, the company has pared its workforce by over a third to 6,000 people. "We're done with the major moves," said Richardson. He joined LSI two years ago with several colleagues from Intel, including Abhi Talwalkar, LSI's president and chief executive officer. Talwalkar used to be a vice president and co-general manager at Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, which includes storage and communications products. The group set changes in motion at LSI to make it more streamlined in terms of its product portfolio, and more powerful in its main business segments -- networking and storage. "The combination of the companies has already resulted in major design wins," according to Richardson, though he declined to elaborate. LSI and Agere shared a lot of synergies in storage and networks, which is why the deal made sense, he said. In networking, LSI is now focused on providing chips to telecommunications companies for TV services, broadband, and collaboration. Chips are needed for equipment used in advanced packet processing, advanced traffic management, content inspection, and digital signal processing. For the storage business, which includes hard disc drives, there are a host of new products either coming out or under consideration at the company, including chips for solid-state drives, Richardson said. The decision to sell its mobile phone arm wasn't easy, but LSI sees the market as a tough one undergoing consolidation. Two companies dominate in communications chips, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, said Richardson, and there's an ongoing battle for a distant third place. Several major chip makers have opted out of the segment in recent years. For example,Â Intel agreed to sellÂ its communications and application processor business last year to Marvell Technology Group for $600 million. This year has seen a few deals, including the LSI-Infineon transaction and the purchase of Analog Devices' telecommunications chip products by Taiwan's MediaTek for $350 million in cash. "We believe there will be further consolidation," said Richardson. Â
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) has entered into sourcing and manufacturing technology agreements with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd.
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(InfoWorld) - Freescale Semiconductor Inc. has agreed to be acquired by a group of investment firms for US$17.6 billion. A consortium of four private equity firms plans to buy the big Austin, Texas, chipmaker for $40 per share in cash. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and a vote by Freescale shareholders. Freescale's board of directors has unanimously approved the sale, the company announced Friday. The offer price represents an approximately 36 percent premium over the company's average closing share price in the 30 days ended Sept. 8. Freescale, a spinoff of Motorola Inc., went public on its own in 2004 and had sales of $5.8 billion in 2005. It designs and manufactures embedded networking, wireless, automotive, industrial and consumer product chips. Under the deal, Freescale is allowed to solicit other proposals for the next 50 calendar days and can respond to unsolicited offers, subject to a deal breakup fee. The consortium is led by The Blackstone Group, in New York, and includes The Carlyle Group, Permira Funds and Texas Pacific Group.
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The artificial joint maker accepted a bid of $11.4 billion from a private equity consortium.
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L-3 Communications Corp., which supplies products used in aerospace and defense platforms, agreed to buy CAE Inc.&#39;s Marine Controls division for about $225 million cash and the assumption of about $42.
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BLOOMFIELD HILLS - Logicalis, an international IT integration company, has acquired for $90 million Solution Technology, a privately held IBM solution provider and one of IBM&#39;s top 10 Business Partners.