BY Richard Summerfield
Renesas Electronics Corp has agreed to buy Dialog Semiconductor in a deal worth $5.9bn. Dialog accepted the all-cash offer of around €67.50 per share, the companies said in a statement announcing the deal. The price represented a 20 percent premium to Dialog’s Friday close of €56.12.
“The transaction we announced today represents our next important step in catapulting Renesas’ growth plan to achieve substantial strategic and financial benefits, following our previous acquisitions,” said Hidetoshi Shibata, president and chief executive of Renesas. “Dialog has a strong culture of innovation along with excellent customer relationships and serves fast growing areas including IoT, industrial and automotive. By bringing Dialog’s talented team and expertise into Renesas, together, we will accelerate innovation for customers and create sustainable value for our shareholders.”
“For several years, we have successfully executed on a diversification strategy that positions Dialog for high-growth,” said Dr Jalal Bagherli, chief executive of Dialog. “We have built a strong foundation of high-performance analog and power efficient mixed-signal expertise, extended our product portfolio and applied our technologies into markets including 5G, wearables, automotive, smart home, connected medical and industrial IoT.”
He continued: “This compelling platform – combined with Renesas’ leading embedded compute, analog and power portfolio – creates even greater growth opportunities in today’s increasingly connected world. The Dialog team is excited to join forces with Renesas. The combined company will be in an even stronger position to provide innovative products for these markets, building on Renesas’ extensive sales, distribution and customer support capabilities.”
The deal is the last transaction in the increasingly active semiconductor industry. According to Bloomberg, the volume of deals involving semiconductor companies more than doubled in 2020 to $144bn. A marked shortage of available semiconductors has impacted the manufacturing of various consumer electrical goods, with Sony and Apple among those companies worst affected.
Renesas and Dialog both supply Apple. In Dialog’s case, Apple accounted for two-thirds of the company’s $1.4bn in total sales in 2019. Dialog’s other clients also include Samsung, Xiaomi and Panasonic. The company expects revenue generated from Apple to fall to about 25 percent by the end of 2023.
Dialog confirmed on Sunday that it had received an offer from Renesas after media reports of interest from the Japanese company and Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics.
News: Renesas boosts power and connectivity prowess with $6 billion Dialog deal