Seagate to Acquire Controlling Interest in LaCie

By Douglas Perry
published

Seagate said that it has entered an agreement to purchase a majority share in consumer HDD storage vendor LaCie.

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."

Douglas Perry
11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • danwat1234
    Blah blah blah I like Lacie's enclosures so I'm going to buy into the company
    Reply
  • rohitbaran
    So much for all the HDD crisis. Seagate and WD lied to the world big time, judging by their recent billion dollar purchases. Now this. I wonder when will FTC wake up to these acquisitions before the HDD market turns into a total duopoly, like it isn't already.
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    rohitbaranSo much for all the HDD crisis. Seagate and WD lied to the world big time, judging by their recent billion dollar purchases. Now this. I wonder when will FTC wake up to these acquisitions before the HDD market turns into a total duopoly, like it isn't already.
    Softpedia had an article on this recently, which indeed calls into question the reality of the "HDD Crisis". For companies in crisis, their profit margins and actions doesn't seem to be one in crisis.
    Reply
  • rohitbaran
    eddieroolzSoftpedia had an article on this recently, which indeed calls into question the reality of the "HDD Crisis". For companies in crisis, their profit margins and actions doesn't seem to be one in crisis.Yep, I have been following that.
    Reply
  • osamabinrobot
    yeah the hdd manufacturers totally tore a page out of the oil industry's play book. blow production hiccup into immense proportions, jack prices way up for way too long, profit! hey look at that, no missing steps!
    Reply
  • Idonno
    1st Seagate gobbled up, destroyed, then crapped out Maxtor. Now LaCie? Too bad, It looks like the storage industry is about to lose yet another quality manufacturer.
    Reply
  • maddy143ded
    Lacie is not a manufacturer. it buys the OEM HDDs from either WD or Seagate and assembles them in its own Enclosures..
    nearly all the HDD manufacturing is in the hands of Seagate and WD .
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    rohitbaranSo much for all the HDD crisis. Seagate and WD lied to the world big time, judging by their recent billion dollar purchases. The crisis part wasn't on the profit margins, but on the production capacity. They simply couldn't supply drives in sufficient quantity. But since their production costs didn't increase with demand (and the associated asking price) their income vastly improved.


    What I find much more facinating though, is seeing that almost a third of lacia's value is cash in the bank. That's a company with success it would appear.
    Reply
  • Idonno
    maddy143dedLacie is not a manufacturer. it buys the OEM HDDs from either WD or Seagate and assembles them in its own Enclosures..nearly all the HDD manufacturing is in the hands of Seagate and WD .My point is anything Seagate touches turns to crap. Your point is ..............?
    Reply
  • thundervore
    Someone have to put an end to this!

    Because of Seagate my wonderful Samsung F4 2TB drives that had a wonderful 3 year warranty are now crappy Seagate drives with 1 year warranty. Ive never had a Samsung drive that failed, but in the last 3 months ive had 2 Seagate 2TB that constantly throw bad sectors and relocation events in my WHS, not to mention they run 10c higher than the F4's in the same 8 bay enclosure.

    Now they are going to buy Lacie? Great, so now its going to be "Lacie by Seagate".
    Reply