Atmel Merger Odd, But Proves Mergers Still Possible (ATML, MCHP, ONNN)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Atmel_logoAtmel Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML) is going to be trading up big this morning.  Shares are currently halted on the news that Microchip Technology Incorporated (NASDAQ: MCHP) and ON Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: ONNN) have sent a proposal to Atmel to acquire the company for $5.00 per share in cash.

This is roughly a premium of 52% to yesterday’s closing price of $3.28and is at the higher end of the $2.83 to $5.83 trading range of thelast 52-weeks.  It also tallies the company up to a value of about $2.3billion.

Microchip is leading this acquisition and the deal will be partlyfinanced by the sale of Atmel’s nonvolatile memory and radio frequencyand automotive units to ON Semiconductor.

This is a very different merger when you consider how it is beingconducted.   But it also shows and proves that mergers can come even inthe most volatile or questionable economic times.

Jon C. Ogg
October 2, 2008

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618