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Is Acer Open To A Takeover?
Acer Inc founder Stan Shih said he would welcome a takeover of the struggling Taiwanese computer manufacturer after a drastic decline in its stock price, while warning any potential buyer would have to pay a heavy amount.
“Welcome,” Shih told reporters in response to a question about whether Acer would be open to a takeover. He added however that any buyer would get an “empty shell” and would pay dearly.
“U.S. and European management teams usually are concerned about money, their CEOs only work for money. But Taiwanese are more concerned about a sense of mission and emotional factors,” he said.
His remarks were first reported by Taiwanese media on Thursday and were confirmed by a company spokesman.
Acer has reported steep on-year sales falls in recent months, including a 33 percent drop in July.
It suffered a T$2.89 billion ($90 million) loss in the first six months of 2015, versus a slight profit in the same period last year. It booked losses for all of 2011, 2012 and 2013 amid cratering PC sales.
Its stock price has fallen by nearly half since early April.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/acer-warms-to-takeover-possibility.html
Panasonic Appears To Be On The Hunt
April 8, 2015 by admin
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Japanese electronics giant Panasonic Corp said it is gearing up to spend 1 trillion yen ($8.4 billion) on acquisitions over the next four years, bolstered by a stronger profit outlook for its automotive and housing technology businesses.
Chief Executive Kazuhiro Tsuga said at a briefing on Thursday that Panasonic doesn’t have specific acquisition targets in mind for now. But he said the firm will spend around 200 billion yen on M&A in the fiscal year that kicks off in April alone, and pledged to improve on Panasonic’s patchy track record on big deals.
“With strategic investments, if there’s an opportunity to accelerate growth, you need funds. That’s the idea behind the 1 trillion yen figure,” he said. Tsuga has spearheaded a radical restructuring at the Osaka-based company that has made it one of the strongest turnaround stories in Japan’s embattled technology sector.
Tsuga previously told Reuters that company was interested in M&A deals in the European white goods market, a sector where Panasonic has comparatively low brand recognition.
The firm said on Thursday it’s targeting operating profit of 430 billion yen in the next fiscal year, up nearly 25 percent from the 350 billion yen it expects for the year ending March 31.
Panasonic’s earnings have been bolstered by moving faster than peers like Sony Corp and Sharp Corp to overhaul business models squeezed by competition from cheaper Asian rivals and caught flat-footed in a smartphone race led by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics. Out has gone reliance on mass consumer goods like TVs and smartphones, and in has come a focus on areas like automotive technology and energy-efficient home appliances.
Tsuga also sought to ease concerns that an expensive acquisition could set back its finances, which took years to recover from the deal agreed in 2008 to buy cross-town rival Sanyo for a sum equal to about $9 billion at the time.
Samsung Buys LoopPay
March 5, 2015 by admin
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Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has acquired U.S. mobile wallet startup LoopPay, signaling its intention to launch a smartphone payments service to compete with rival Apple Inc.
Mobile payments have been slow to catch on in the United States and elsewhere, despite strong backing. Apple, Google, and eBay Inc’s PayPal have all launched services to allow users to pay in stores via smartphones.
The weak uptake is partly because many retailers have been reluctant to adopt the hardware and software infrastructure required for these new mobile payment options to work. These services also fail to offer much more convenience than simply swiping a credit card, Samsung executives said on Wednesday.
LoopPay’s technology differs because it works off existing magnetic-stripe card readers at checkout, changing them into contactless receivers, they said. About 90 percent of checkout counters already support magnetic swiping.
“If you can’t solve the problem of merchant acceptance…, of being able to use the vast majority of your cards, then it can’t really be your wallet,” said David Eun, head of Samsung’s Global Innovation Center.
Injong Rhee, who is leading Samsung’s as-yet-unannounced payments project, said the Asian giant will soon reveal more details of its envisioned service. He would not be drawn on speculation the company may do so during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
He said new phones such as the upcoming, latest Galaxy would support the service.
Apple Pay, launched in September, allows iPhone users to pay at the tap of a button. Executives have lauded its rapid rollout so far, including the fact that more than 2,000 banks now support it and the U.S. government will accept Apple Pay later this year.
But Apple Pay requires retailers to install near-field communication and some have been reluctant. In addition, many retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and CVS Health Corp, back their own system, CurrentC.
Samsung had invested in LoopPay, along with Visa Inc and Synchrony Financial, before its acquisition. Terms of the deal, which Samsung negotiated over several months, were not disclosed.
It’s unclear how else Samsung could differentiate its service versus Apple’s or other rivals.
Does B&N Have A Buyer?
March 6, 2014 by admin
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Investment firm G Asset Management said on Friday that it had offered to acquire a 51 percent stake in either Barnes & Noble Inc or in the bookseller’s Nook digital business.
The little known firm said the proposal for Barnes & Noble as a whole would be for $22 per share, which would value the top U.S. bookstore chain at $1.32 billion. It comes after earlier proposal in November for $20 per share, its second.
G Asset, which not did detail how it would finance a deal, also made an alternative offer to buy Nook for $5 per share, saying spinning off the digital books and device business would create “substantial shareholder value.”
The latest offer for the whole company would value Barnes & Noble at $1.32 billion, while the proposal for Nook would value that unit at about $300 million.
The firm has previously pressed the company to spin off its Nook unit from Barnes & Noble’s bookstore and college units.
Michael Glickstein, G Asset’s Chief Investment Officer, and the only person listed on the firm’s website, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Barnes & Noble shares were up 5.8 percent at $17.75 in afternoon trading after going as high as $19.12 after the news was released, suggesting Wall Street analysts were doubtful a deal would get done.
A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman declined to comment beyond confirming that the company had received G Asset’s offer.
The original Nook device was launched in 2009 to help Barnes & Noble fend off Amazon.com Inc and allowed the retailer to win as much as 27 percent of the U.S. e-books market.
But the company lost hundreds of millions of dollars trying to keep pace with deep-pocketed rivals such as Amazon, Apple Inc and Google Inc. It has scaled back its Nook business and focusing more on content and software.
Two years ago, Microsoft Corp invested $300 million in the Nook unit for a 17.6 percent stake, valuing the division at $1.7 billion. In late 2012, Pearson PLC took a 5 percent stake in Nook for $89.5 million.
at&t Vows To Continue Quest
December 14, 2011 by admin
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AT&T Inc plans to forge ahead with its deal to acquire Deutsche Telekom’s U.S. wireless unit despite regulatory opposition, and it has the financial resources to close the acquisition quickly, a top executive said on Wednesday.
“We continue to move forward with our efforts to complete the T-Mobile transaction…and we will continue to pursue the sale,” AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said at the UBS media conference in New York.
Will The FTC Block The Google?
October 8, 2011 by admin
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The FTC has asked Google for more information about its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Google is buying the outfit as a defence against Apple and Microsoft patent law suits, however in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Motorola said it received a request for “additional information and documentary material” from the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division.
According to Reuters, Motorola said Google also received a similar request and repeated its expectation the deal would close by the end of 2011 or early 2012. Writing in his bog, Google Senior Vice President Dennis Woodside said the DOJ’s “second request” was “pretty routine” and there was nothing to see here, move on please. Google usually gets a note from the FTC even if it buys lunch for a client. A similar one appeared when it bought ITA Software.
States Subpoena Sprint
July 16, 2011 by admin
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Sprint Nextel has been subpoenaed by nine states in connection with antitrust reviews of AT&T’s proposed $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA, according to information Sprint posted on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) website.
In a letter dated June 28 to FCC, Sprint said it had received subpoenas and civil investigation demands from attorneys general in the states of Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, as well as from the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Sprint, the No.3 U.S. mobile service, is opposing AT&T’s proposed $39 billion purchase of No.4 U.S. mobile service T-Mobile USA, a Deutsche Telekom AG unit, on the grounds it will give too much competitive power to one company.
Sprint said in its letter that the states have asked the company to provide all the materials it had submitted to FCC regarding AT&T’s deal.
Meanwhile, an AT&T spokesman told Bloomberg that his company had also received subpoenas from the same nine states regarding its proposed T-Mobile transaction.