Thursday, May 5, 2022

MaxLinear to acquire Silicon Motion for NAND flash controllers

MaxLinear agreed to acquire Silicon Motion in a cash and stock transaction that values the combined company at $8 billion in enterprise value.

Silicon Motion, which was founded in 1997 in Taipei, Taiwan, specializes in NAND flash controller integrated circuits for solid-state storage devices. The company claims that more NAND flash components, including current and up-coming generations of 3D flash produced by Intel, Kioxia, Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, Western Digital and YMTC, are supported by Silicon Motion controllers than any other company. Silicon Motion customers include NAND flash makers, module makers, hyperscalers and OEMs.

Upon completion of the acquisition, the combined company will have a highly diversified technology platform with strong positions across the broadband, connectivity, infrastructure, and storage end markets. The combination of MaxLinear’s RF, analog/mixed-signal, and processing capabilities with Silicon Motion’s market leading NAND flash controller technology completes a total technology stack which fully captures end-to-end platform functionality and accelerates the company’s expansion into enterprise, consumer, and many other adjacent growth markets. Combined revenues are expected to be more than $2 billion annually and are supported by the technology breadth to address a total market opportunity of roughly $15 billion.

In the merger, each American Depositary Share (ADS) of Silicon Motion, which represents four ordinary shares of Silicon Motion, will receive $93.54 in cash and 0.388 shares of MaxLinear common stock, for total per ADS consideration of $114.34 (based on MaxLinear’s May 4, 2022 closing price). The strategic business combination is anticipated to drive transformational scale, create a diversified technology portfolio, significantly expand the combined company’s total addressable market, and create a highly profitable cash generating semiconductor leader.

MaxLinear intends to fund the $3.1 billion of cash consideration with cash on hand from the combined companies and fully committed debt financing from Wells Fargo Bank.

“Today’s announcement celebrates the combination of two companies that have driven significant innovation in their respective industries for over a decade,” said Kishore Seendripu, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of MaxLinear. “The enhanced scale of the combined organization creates a new significant $2B+ player in the semiconductor industry with compelling positions across a diversified set of end-markets. MaxLinear has demonstrated a strong track record of integration success and looks for this combination to create robust growth, impressive operating margins and significant cash flows.”

“For 20 years, we have built Silicon Motion with a commitment to advancing innovation, partnering with all of our valued customers and supporting our colleagues around the world,” said Wallace Kou, President and Chief Executive Officer of Silicon Motion. “Combining Silicon Motion with MaxLinear creates significant economies of scale, accelerates our expansion into enterprise storage markets and unites unparalleled intellectual property to continue serving our customers with high-quality expertise and technical support. This transaction will deliver compelling value for shareholders, position our company to achieve our growth objectives and advance our position in high-growth storage end markets. We are very excited to partner with the MaxLinear team to take the combined company to the next level.”

https://investors.maxlinear.com