A bid by Singapore’s state-owned investment company to acquire Stats ChipPac Ltd. fell short on Friday after being thwarted by an investment fund. But the failed buyout attempt still leaves Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd. holding a hefty 83.1 percent of the chip-packaging company’s shares.
Temasek made its S$2.4 billion (US$1.6 billion) acquisition bid for Stats ChipPac, announced in March, through a wholly owned subsidiary, Singapore Technologies Semiconductors Pte. Ltd. (STS). Prior to the bid, STS held around 35 percent of Stats ChipPac and needed to own at least 90 percent of the company’s shares to complete the buyout and delist the company from Singapore’s stock exchange.
In the end, Temasek’s buyout bid was thwarted by investment fund manager Marathon Asset Management LLC, which declined to sell the 6.9 percent of Stats ChipPac shares it controlled. A second fund, Oz Management LLC, sold most of its Stats ChipPac shares in response to the bid, but retained a 1.9 percent stake in the company.
In the end, STS acquired 981.5 million shares, according to a filing. Based on the terms of the original offer, which priced these shares at S$1.75 each, STS paid approximately S$1.7 billion for its expanded stake in Stats ChipPac.
While STS and Temasek may have failed to take Stats ChipPac private, their bid was more successful than a similar offer for Taiwan chip-packaging company Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE). Last year, U.S. venture capital firm The Carlyle Group offered to acquire ASE for US$5.5 billion. That deal was scrapped in April when the two companies could not agree on a higher acquisition price.
