Revenue refresh through M&A

Posted by on April 9, 2009

Contact: Brenon Daly Having recently lost several key Asian customers in the brutally competitive digital TV market, Trident Microsystems went shopping in Europe last week to rebuild its top line. On its trip, Trident got a pretty good bargain. It will hand over some seven million shares, valued at roughly $10.3m, to Switzerland’s Micronas Semiconductor [...]

Cutting the ties that bind

Posted by on March 9, 2009

Contact: Brenon Daly As the business prospects for this year continue to deteriorate, companies are increasingly looking to shed underperforming divisions. VeriSign, for example, has already divested two units so far this year and still has a handful of others on the block. As drawn-out and money-losing as divestitures can be, it’s almost always preferable [...]

How do you say ‘please come back’ in Korean?

Posted by on February 6, 2009

A bleak earnings report and plummeting market cap have battered SanDisk. Perhaps the flash memory maker should try to persuade Samsung to return to the table.

EA’s South Korean embrace

Posted by on December 19, 2008

This marks a change in strategy for the stumbling giant. And like the casual gaming trend we outlined last month, it signals a significant shift for the industry that will likely drive M&A well into the new year.

Inconsistent currencies

Posted by on October 31, 2008

Throughout much of the year, the US dollar looked like lightweight paper. A buck basically bought you a loonie (as our northern neighbors call their dollar), and foreign exchange traders were heard shouting jokes about ‘the American peso.’ We noted the weak US dollar as one of the key reasons that total M&A spending by [...]

A flash-y, low-ball bid

Posted by on September 17, 2008

SanDisk shot down a $5.85bn all-cash unsolicited bid from Samsung Electronics, saying the bid by the South Korean electronics giant doesn’t reflect the full value of flash memory provider. Despite the rejection, SanDisk shares surged 39%, closing at $20.92. Samsung bid $26 for each share. Last October, SanDisk shares changed hands above $50. Samsung made [...]

Signing off on a deal

Posted by on August 20, 2008

The bear just keeps grumbling – and we don’t mean the bear market. Instead, we’re talking about the all-the-rage bear hugs that companies are giving each other. The latest: Nuance Communications’ $40m unsolicited offer for Zi Corp. (Incidentally, the new hostilities come as a pair of previous unsolicited deals – Cadence Design Systems’ run at [...]

eBay places bid

Posted by on August 15, 2008

EBay has failed repeatedly to break into Asia. In true adherence to the phrase ‘if you can’t beat them, buy them,’ eBay is now attempting to acquire its Korean competitor Gmarket. Will this change eBay’s fortunes?

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