LaCie CEO Philippe Spruch Would Remain On Board
Seagate plans to buy LaCie, whose products include Thunderbolt-enabled external hard disks and RAIDs aimed at content creators, in a deal worth at least $186 million, the companies said today.
Seagate has made an offer to buy out LaCie Chairman and CEO Philippe Spruch's stake in the company, which represents 64.5 percent of all the outstanding shares. Seagate would then make an all-cash tender offer for the rest of the outstanding shares in the French company.
The initial purchase and subsequent tender offer are both expected to be completed in the third quarter of calendar 2012 — pending approval by authorities in the U.S., France, and Germany.
The deal currently values the company at $186 million in total, although Seagate has offered to pay an additional 3 percent if 95 percent of the shares and voting right can be acquired within six months of the deal's closing. That would bring the purchase price close to $192 million.
Spruch would head Seagate's consumer storage products division after completion of the deal. "We are excited about the potential for this combination to benefit customers and employees by creating significant scale and opening up new markets," Spruch said in a prepared statement.
