Taiwanese solar wafer maker Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (SAS, 中美晶) yesterday said it had reached an agreement with Covalent Materials Corp to complete the transfer of the Japanese firm’s silicon wafer business to SAS today.
The Japanese company’s silicon wafer business, Covalent Silicon Corp, is the sixth-largest in the world, with customers in Japan, Taiwan, Europe and the US. Its wafer products are widely used in the semiconductor industry including in items ranging from DRAM, micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) to insulated gate bipolar transistors.
“This acquisition will largely improve the operations of the company’s semiconductor business, increasing value-added operation through integration of the semiconductor business and market share,” SAS said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
In August, SAS announced it planned to acquire all the shares in Covalent’s wafer business owned by US private equity funds Carlyle Group and Unison Capital Inc for ¥35 billion (US$421 million) on a debt-free basis.
In January, the Taiwanese firm negotiated with Covalent to lower the price by 20 percent to ¥28 billion to reflect changes in market conditions. It won the Investment Commission’s approval of the acquisition on Feb. 29.
Starting today, SAS will integrate Covalent Silicon with its local wafer business, GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), in the hope that the move will help strengthen the company’s position as a leading global provider of wafer solutions across the semiconductor, solar and LED markets.
The company said earlier that the acquisition would improve the operations of its semiconductor business, especially the production scale and technological strength of its eight-inch wafer product line, at a time when the global solar power industry is experiencing a downturn driven by overcapacity and falling prices.
SAS reported net income of NT$428 million (US$14.5 million) last year, or earnings per share of NT$1.02, on consolidated revenue of NT$17.55 billion. That compared with net income of NT$3.57 billion, or earnings per share of NT$10.5, on consolidated revenue of NT$22.53 billion in 2010.
Separately, GlobalWafers said in a filing yesterday it had raised NT$5.5 billion through the issue of 137.5 million new shares to boost its capital structure. The company, which was spun off from SAS in April last year, reported net income of NT$122 million last year, or earnings per share of NT$0.68, on revenue of NT$476 million.
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