Renesas Electronics Corp of Japan has agreed to acquire Dialog Semiconductor PLC, the UK chip designer whose clients include Apple Inc, marking another UK-based semiconductor company being sold to Asian investors.
Renesas is making an all-cash offer of 67.50 euros per share, it said in a statement yesterday.
The Japanese company would pay about 4.9 billion euros (US$5.9 billion) to take over its target, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday.
Photo: Reuters
Dialog has agreed to the terms of the transaction, it said in a statement yesterday.
The offer price is a 20 percent premium to Dialog’s Friday close of 56.12 euros.
Shares of the Frankfurt-listed company have risen about 25 percent since the start of the year, boosted by strong demand for Apple’s 5G handsets, as well as takeover speculation.
Renesas shares dropped 3.60 percent to ￥1,203 in Tokyo.
Dialog had been in advanced discussions with suitors, including Renesas, and working with advisers, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
The company was previously holding discussions with STMicroelectronics NV before the Franco-Italian company was outbid, the people said at the time.
In September, Nvidia Corp agreed to buy Softbank Group Corp’s chip division Arm Ltd for US$40 billion, taking control of some of the most widely used chip technology in the industry’s largest-ever deal, while chip designer Imagination Technologies Group PLC was sold to Chinese-backed investor Canyon Bridge Capital Partners in late 2017.
Any deal could draw scrutiny from UK regulators as countries grow more protective of strategic industries such as semiconductors.
The UK government is also planning to introduce new rules that would allow officials to look at past takeovers and mergers where concerns have been raised.
Renesas, which had a market value of US$20.5 billion as of Friday’s close, is one of the largest suppliers of semiconductors used in vehicles. It also has European offices in the UK and Germany.
In 2019, Renesas completed its acquisition of US firm Integrated Device Technology Inc, a deal valued at more than US$6 billion that helped it expand beyond the automotive sector.
Dialog and Renesas have been working together for more than a decade.
The UK company, which specializes in designing power management chips, said in August that it would collaborate with Renesas on car computing platforms.
Both companies have found themselves part of tensions concerning the semiconductor supply chain.
Apple was grappling with a shortage of vital chips that manage power consumption in iPhones and other devices, people with knowledge of the matter said in November.
Within the auto industry, a semiconductor shortage is forcing automakers to halt production lines and is straining their relationship with chip suppliers.
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