Jun 16, 2016
ASML Holding NV, one of the biggest producers of chipmaking equipment, said it’s buying Taiwan-based Hermes Microvision Inc. for about NT$100 billion ($3.1 billion), seeking to add technology for creating smaller chips.
ASML, based in Veldhoven, Netherlands, is paying NT$1,410 per share in cash to Hermes Microvision stockholders, representing a 31 percent premium over the Asian company’s average price over the past 30 days, the companies said in a statement early Thursday.
ASML and its peers are consolidating to acquire the scale needed to cope with the increasing cost of the fundamental technology that goes into chips. That also puts them in a better position to negotiate with the few companies that can still afford to build leading-edge production facilities. Just three companies, Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. account for the majority of spending on new chipmaking plants and equipment.
ASML is the industry leader in lithography machines that etch the lines into materials deposited on silicon disks, which create the tiny circuits that enable chips to process complex computations. Hermes Microvision’s equipment checks that steps in the process of making chips have been properly completed.
The shares of Nikon Corp., which competes with ASML, fell 1.6 percent to 1,425 yen in early Tokyo trade. ASML shares are up 1.7 percent this year, while Hermes Microvision’s stock is up 1.3 percent.
ASML is financing its purchase with cash, about 1.5 billion euros of debt and 500 million euros of ASML stock that will be bought by Hermes Microvision’s main shareholder and the Taiwanese company’s executives. Part of the proceeds will be reinvested in Hermes Microvision, and ASML said the deal will immediately add to its per-share earnings.
Source: Bloomberg