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.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
‘FAILED EXPORT CONTROLS’: Jensen Huang said that Washington should maximize the speed of AI diffusion, because not doing so would give competitors an advantage Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday criticized the US government’s restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, saying that the policy was a failure and would only spur China to accelerate AI development. The export controls gave China the spirit, motivation and government support to accelerate AI development, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taipei. The competition in China is already intense, given its strong software capabilities, extensive technology ecosystems and work efficiency, he said. “All in all, the export controls were a failure. The facts would suggest it,” he said. “The US
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed gratitude to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) for its plan to invest approximately 250 million euros (US$278 million) in a joint venture in France focused on the semiconductor and space industries. On his official X account on Tuesday, Macron thanked Hon Hai, also known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), for its investment projects announced at Choose France, a flagship economic summit held on Monday to attract foreign investment. In the post, Macron included a GIF displaying the national flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan), as he did for other foreign investors, including China-based
RSS