Investment firm offers $250M for Taiwan tech company

A private equity firm has offered to buy Primax Electronics for around US$250 million in cash, the latest offer for a Taiwanese technology company.

Hong Chuan Investment, also a Taiwanese firm, offered to pay 54 cents per share for a 10% initial investment, Primax said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Hong Chuan plans to purchase the remaining shares of the company within the next three months.

Primax, which makes a range of electronics including scanners, laptop PC mouses and Bluetooth headsets, said it will hold a meeting of its board of directors within the next seven days to discuss the proposal.

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A private equity firm has offered to buy Primax Electronics for around US$250 million in cash, the latest offer for a Taiwanese technology company.

Hong Chuan Investment, also a Taiwanese firm, offered to pay 54 cents per share for a 10% initial investment, Primax said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Hong Chuan plans to purchase the remaining shares of the company within the next three months.

Primax, which makes a range of electronics including scanners, laptop PC mouses and Bluetooth headsets, said it will hold a meeting of its board of directors within the next seven days to discuss the proposal.

A number of companies have shown interest in Taiwan over the past several months. In January, Fairchild Semiconductor of South Portland, Maine, launched a $200 million bid to buy Taiwan's System General Corp. The deal has since been concluded.

U.S. private equity firm, The Carlyle Group, proposed an offer of $5.5 billion for Taiwan's Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), the world's largest chip assembly company, in November. But on Tuesday, ASE said the deal had fallen apart. ASE had asked Carlyle to raise its offering price, but rejected the higher offer. Carlyle then decided to drop the deal.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.