Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
When that is added to the $4 billion of debt left over from the $6 billion debt imposed on NXP by KKR who bought it in 2006, the combined KKR-Freescale entity will have debt of $9.5 billion.
Ironically one of the reasons why Blackstone paid a hefty $17.6 billion for Freescale was that rival PE company KKR, which had just bought NXP, was interested in also buying Freescale with a view to putting the companies together.
Now, nine years later, that aspiration is being fulfilled.
Hobbled by debt, Freescale’s revenues shrank to $4.6 billion last year from the $6.4 billion they were pre-takeover in 2006.
NXP’s revenues last year were $5.6 billion.
Combining the two companies makes them No.1.in microcontrollers, and gives them increased market clout in network processors, analogue/mixed signal, sensors and RF power amplifiers.
It also gives the combined companies the No.1 position in the automotive electronics business.
And now we see the beauty of Geoff Lees moving from NXP to head up most of Freescales MCU business…. Geoff did an amazing job at NXP and has had a major impact at Freescale since he joined. Having a clear strategy and executing on it was something Freescale strongly needed.
Lets hope that bring these two together is acretive rather than competitive, but having separate large teams in the Valley and Austin should be seen as a good thing rather than a cost to cut.