GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) on Wednesday agreed to acquire German silicon wafer manufacturer Siltronic AG for about 3.75 billion euros (US$4.53 billion), yet another deal in a record year for the global semiconductor industry.
GlobalWafers is to pay 125 euros a share, a 10 percent premium to Siltronic’s closing price on Nov. 27, the day before public disclosure of acquisition talks, the companies said in a statement.
The two companies on Monday last week said they were in discussions.
Photo: Hung Yu-fang, Taipei Times
GlobalWafers has promised not to lay off employees or close any Siltronic site in Germany before the end of 2024, chairwoman and chief executive officer Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said yesterday.
The two companies have 20 factories in 10 countries, she added.
“Siltronic can help bolster GlobalWafers’ capability in 5G, power and Internet of Things,” Hsu said in an interview, adding that the deal would help GlobalWafers accelerate the development of more advanced, compound-based semiconductor technology.
The companies said they expect the deal to be completed in the second half of next year.
Hsu said that GlobalWafers is confident the deal would pass regulatory reviews.
The combined company would be the world’s largest silicon wafer maker by revenue, with a market share of 32 to 35 percent, Fubon Securities Investment Services Co (富邦投顧) analyst Richard Hsia (夏武正) said.
The proposed deal would be GlobalWafers’ largest ever, and one of the biggest in the chip industry this year, as companies look beyond the COVID-19 pandemic to a return to normal business.
The offer would also add to a growing number of semiconductor deals this year, which is set to break the high-water mark for chip acquisitions reached in 2016, when US$122 billion in transactions were struck.
The largest deal of 2016 was Softbank Group Corp’s US$32 billion purchase of Arm Ltd.
Headquartered in Munich, Siltronic is a leading manufacturer of silicon wafers used in products such as smartphones, computers, navigation and digital displays.
The firm, which has production sites and offices in Germany, the US and other advanced manufacturing countries, had global revenues of about 1.3 billion euros last year.
GlobalWafers, majority-owned by Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (中美晶), reported revenue of about NT$58 billion (US$2 billion) and operating income of NT$18 billion last year.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
TECH COMPETITION: The US restricted sales of two dozen types of manufacturing equipment and three software tools, and blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities US President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled new restrictions on China’s access to vital components for chips and artificial intelligence (AI), escalating a campaign to contain Beijing’s technological ambitions. The US Department of Commerce slapped additional curbs on the sale of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and chipmaking gear, including that produced by US firms at foreign facilities. It also blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities that it accused of acting on Beijing’s behalf, although it did not name them in an initial statement. Full details on the new sanctions and Entity List additions were to be published later yesterday, a US official said. The US “will
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
COLLABORATION: The operations center shows the close partnership between Taiwan and Japan in the field of semiconductors, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo said Tokyo Electron Ltd, Asia’s biggest semiconductor equipment supplier, yesterday launched a NT$2 billion (US$61.5 million) operations center in Tainan as it aims to expand capacity and meet growing demand. Its new Taiwan Operations Center is expected to help customers release their products faster, boost production efficiency and shorten equipment repair time in a cost-effective way, the company said. The center is about a five-minute drive from the factories of its major customers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) advanced 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer fabs. The operations center would have about 1,000 employees when it is fully utilized, the company
RSS