Motorola Solutions Inc has failed to find a buyer after seeking to drum up interest from private-equity funds and large industrial companies, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The maker of two-way radios and other communications equipment has proved too large a target for any single buyout fund, one of the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.
Motorola shares fell 6.2 percent to US$62.51 in New York trading on Thursday, giving it a market value of about US$13.2 billion.
Motorola also approached strategic buyers, including Honeywell International Inc and Tyco International PLC, without gaining any traction, another person said. Some companies were concerned that Motorola’s technology might become obsolete too quickly to justify a large purchase price, the person said.
Motorola has struggled recently, with per-share profit excluding some items tumbling 45 percent last year, and sales this year projected to be unchanged to slightly lower.
The company might be able to find interest from wireless carriers that want to deepen relationships with emergency service providers who need reliable and constant access to communications networks, Cleveland, Ohio-based Northcoast Research analyst Keith Housum said.
Another option for Motorola — a share buyback — would only increase debt and make it less attractive to private-equity firms, he said.
Funds are finding it difficult to obtain financing for large deals, and so-called club deals among teams of firms have largely disappeared.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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