Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), China’s biggest PC maker, offered to buy control of Germany’s Medion AG for 466 million euros (US$672 million) in its biggest acquisition since the purchase of IBM’s PC business more than six years ago.
Lenovo will buy a 37 percent stake from chairman Gerd Brachmann for 231 million euros, or 13 euros a share, and plans to extend the offer to remaining shareholders, the Chinese company said in a statement yesterday.
That’s 18 percent higher than the German PC maker’s last close. Brachmann plans to keep an 18 percent stake, it said.
Lenovo chief executive Yang Yuanqing (楊元慶) said the Chinese company was interested in making more acquisitions.
The deal, which follows plans to form a venture with Japan’s NEC Corp, would help the maker of Thinkpad laptops expand its distribution network in Europe and boost its share of the global PC market against those of Hewlett-Packard Co (HP), Dell Inc and Acer Inc (宏碁).
HP accounted for 17.6 percent of the global PC market last quarter, declining from 18 percent a year earlier, according to research company Gartner Inc.
Lenovo, the fourth biggest, increased its market share to 9.7 percent from 8.2 percent, while Taipei-based Acer dropped to 12.9 percent from 14.6 percent, Gartner said.
The purchase will help Lenovo double its market share in Germany to 14 percent, the company statement said.
Medion would complement Lenovo’s west European business because of its strengths in the consumer retail market and distribution channels, it said.
Lenovo last week reported that fourth-quarter profit tripled, beating analysts’ estimates, after increasing sales to businesses in the US and Europe.
The Chinese company is stepping up a challenge to Apple Inc by offering smartphones and tablet devices and plans to enter the game-console market in the second half of the year.
Medion, based in Essen, supplies home-entertainment equipment and PCs to Aldi, Europe’s biggest discount retailer. The company’s profit last year increased by a third to 18.9 million euros, as sales climbed 16 percent. About three quarters of its revenue comes from Germany.
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