ARM Acquires Artisan for $913M
Online staff -- EDN, August 23, 2004
In a deal worth about $913 million, ARM Holdings plc today announced it would acquire Artisan Components Inc. to create one of the broadest suppliers of semiconductor intellectual property in the industry.
Under the terms of the agreement, Artisan stockholders would receive $9.60 in cash and ARM stock equal to 4.41 ARM ADSs for each outstanding Artisan share.
The combined company expects to deliver one of the industry’s broadest portfolios of SOC IP to their combined customer base and be better positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities across multiple industries as system design complexity increases in the sub-micron age. Further, the companies have complementary sales efforts, with ARM’s channel of more than 130 silicon manufacturers, and Artisan’s more than 2,000 customers.
Warren East, CEO of ARM would continue in that role of the combined companies, with Lucio L. Lanza, chairman of Artisan, and Mark R. Templeton, president and CEO of Artisan, joining the board of directors of ARM as a non-executive director and an executive director, respectively, when the deal closes.
The completion of the transaction is expected to occur in Q4, subject to ARM and Artisan stockholder and regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
As of June 30, under U.S. GAAP, Artisan had revenues and profits after taxes in the previous 12 months of $82.9 million and $17.3 million, respectively. For the most recent fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2003, Artisan had revenues and profits after taxes of $68.5 million and $7.3 million, respectively, under U.S. GAAP.
“Artisan represents an excellent strategic fit with our vision to become the 'architecture for the digital world.' With its focus on the leading manufacturers in the semiconductor industry and a broad range of OEM design teams, Artisan has a proven sales channel, which will be highly complementary with the ARM sales channel. The combined entity will be able to reach more customers with a broader product portfolio to better serve our combined user community,” said Sir Robin Saxby, chairman of ARM, in a statement.
“The combination of ARM and Artisan signals a new phase in the industry by meeting the increasingly important system design challenge of providing customers with a coherent IP offering, from architecture to silicon implementation. Putting complementary teams of designers together in one company working on software, system IP and physical IP will enable us to provide a higher level of value to our combined customers,” said Lucio L. Lanza, chairman of Artisan, in the statement.
