“Samsung Electronics said late Tuesday that it has offered to acquire SanDisk Corp. for about $5.85 billion, capping several days of speculation about a potential combination of the two companies,” Dan Gallagher reports for MarketWatch.
“In a letter to SanDisk, Samsung said it was reiterating a previous offer to buy the company for $26 per share in cash, in a deal that would not be contingent to financing arrangements,” Gallagher reports. “But SanDisk rejected the deal in its own statement Tuesday.”
Gallagher reports, “SanDisk Chief Executive Eli Harari said that Samsung’s acquisition offer ‘does not provide appropriate value to our stockholders and is opportunistically timed at the trough of an industry-wide downturn.'”
Gallagher reports, “Samsung had said in its letter that it’s ‘deeply disappointed’ that SanDisk ‘continues to cling to unrealistic expectations on both its standalone market value and an appropriate merger price.’ The letter said the two companies have been in talks for the past four months.”
Full article here.
Owen Thomas reports for Valleywag, “Why does Samsung want SanDisk? Simple: It needs to bulk up to contend with the might of Apple, one of the largest buyers of flash memory.”
“Regulators may block Samsung’s SanDisk bid. But they ought to keep an eye on Apple, too. Antitrust cops tend to spend all their time watching for monopolies — sellers who wield undue influence over a market. They should crack open their investment glossaries and look up “monopsony” — the condition that exists when a buyer dominates a market,” Owen opines.
Full article here.