Seagate said it intends to acquire the 64.5 percent ownership share of LaCie from CEO Philippe Spruch and to also place a tender offer to purchase all remaining shares thereafter.
Seagate is offering a base €4.05 per share in cash, but reserves the right to adjust the price based on the cash and debt position of the company at the time of closing. The offer reflects a 29 percent premium over Lacie's average closing price over the past 30 days.
Seagate is offering an extra 3 percent (for a share price of €4.17) if it can acquire at least 95 percent of all shares as well as voting rights of LaCie within 6 months following the closing. Without the increase, Seagate values the company at about €146 million, or $186 million. The sum includes about €49 million ($65 million) in cash.
"Seagate has a strong commitment to the growing consumer storage market and bringing the most dynamic products to market. LaCie has built an exceptional consumer brand by delivering exciting and innovative high-end products for many years. This transaction would bring a highly complementary set of capabilities to Seagate, significantly expand our consumer product offerings, add a premium-branded direct-attached storage line, strengthen our network-attached storage business line and enhance our capabilities in software development," said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO. "We are also excited that Philippe, who is a true visionary and leader in the consumer storage business, would join Seagate to run our consumer storage products organization."
"With the proliferation of devices and content being shared and stored today, consumer demand for high-quality branded storage solutions continues to grow," said Philippe Spruch, LaCie's chairman and CEO. "We are excited about the potential for this combination to benefit customers and employees by creating significant scale and opening up new markets. We look forward to making the resources of a much larger company available to our customers around the world."
