Vitesse acquires Multilink Technology
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval by Multilink s stockholders and is anticipated to close in the third calendar quarter of 2003, by which time Multilink will have reduced its workforce to approximately 45 employees. Richard Nottenburg, chairman, president and CEO of Multilink, will lead the Multilink team and will assume the position of VP of Backplane Products.
Based on the closing price of $5.07 on June 9 and the share exchange ratio of 0.5493, the holders of Multilink shares will receive $2.78 in Vitesse stock per multilink share, a 13.5% premium on the Multilink closing price of $2.45 on June 9.
"The acquisition of Multilink brings not only a highly experienced team of system, mixed signal and digital design engineers that have successfully developed products for OC-192 transport, Forward Error Correction, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and high speed backplanes, but also a family of products already in production which would cost Vitesse more than the purchase price to reproduce," said Lou Tomasetta, president CEO of Vitesse. "I am also pleased that Rich Nottenburg will lead the product team, which will be augmented by existing Vitesse resources to expand our ongoing efforts in Ethernet, Fibre Channel and backplane physical layer products."
The product portfilios of Multilink and Vitesse are almost all CMOS, although both companies have some compound semiconductor activity. Vitesse is winding down its GaAs fab in Colorado, but is still involved in InP and offers an InP foundry service from its fab in Camarillo, CA.
