US memory-card maker SanDisk Corp has rejected Samsung Electronics Co’s hostile US$5.85 billion takeover bid, calling it “inadequate.”
In a statement released after the markets closed on Tuesday in the US, the Milpitas, California-based SanDisk said its board unanimously decided against the South Korean electronic giant’s US$26 per share offer because it “significantly undervalues SanDisk given the long-term prospects of its business.”
Samsung retorted yesterday that its US$26 per share cash offer represented a premium of 80 percent on Monday’s stock price and SanDisk “continues to cling to unrealistic expectations on both its standalone market value and an appropriate merger price.”
It said the two companies had been in talks for four months and Samsung was “deeply disappointed” that SanDisk’s board had rejected its offer.
A merger with SanDisk, the inventor and world’s largest supplier of flash storage cards, would be the largest undertaken by Samsung, the world’s second-largest chipmaker.
It would improve the Suwon, South Korea-based company’s leading position against Japan’s Toshiba Corp in the flash memory chip arena and save it licensing costs of US$350 million per year that it must now pay to use the flash-memory technology patented by the US firm.
Flash memory chips are used to store music and pictures on digital devices such as cameras and MP3 players.
Samsung made its bid public after SanDisk’s board sent it a rejection letter on Monday, and Lee Yoon-woo, who took over as Samsung’s chief executive in May, said his company would continue to seek a “mutually agreeable” deal.
SanDisk’s board said it “remains open-minded about a transaction that appropriately addresses the issues of value.”
SanDisk has been struggling this year as an oversupply of flash memory chips on the market has driven down prices, leading to losses for the company and a 59 percent drop in its share price.
“We believe Samsung’s proposal does not provide appropriate value to our stockholders and is opportunistically timed at the trough of an industry-wide downturn,” said Eli Harari, SanDisk chairman and chief executive. “In our view, this proposal fails to recognize the value of our patent portfolio, in particular to Samsung.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique