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.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS