Western Digital Announces US $19 Billion Acquisition of SanDisk
It was reported on October 22 when VPS was launched that Western Digital, a hard disk manufacturer, announced today that it would purchase SanDisk, a memory chip manufacturer, for about 19 billion dollars.
Western Digital will acquire SanDisk with cash and stock of $86.50 per share, with a total amount of about $19 billion. The offer is a 15 percent premium to SanDisk's closing price on Tuesday
Affected by this message, SanDisk shares rose 6.4% to $80 in pre market trading today, while Western Digital shares fell 1.1% to $74.
According to the report, SanDisk contacted Western Digital and Micron on the sale last week. Later, Meguiar withdrew from the negotiation, and Western Digital and SanDisk started a separate negotiation.
SanDisk is one of the world's largest flash memory manufacturers. Flash memory chips are used in the storage system of mobile devices, and are increasingly used by computers and data centers. The transaction is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2016.
At the end of September, Unisplendor Group announced that it would invest 3.8 billion dollars (about 24 billion yuan) to acquire the shares of Western Digital. After the transaction, Unisplendor Group would become the largest shareholder of Western Digital.
