It’s looking like LaCie and Seagate have entered into negotiations that would see Seagate purchasing Lacie for 146 million Euros. Based on the Forbes findings Segate plans on purchasing Philippe Spruch’s 64.5 percent stake in LaCie, then once that’s completed they will make an all-cash tender for the remaining LaCie shares:
Seagate has offered Mr. Spruch and his affiliate €4.05 per share in cash, minus a potential adjustment depending on the cash and debt position of LaCie at closing. This price may be increased by a possible price supplement of 3% in the event that the threshold of 95% of the shares and voting rights of LaCie would be reached by Seagate within 6 months following closing, resulting in a maximum potential price per LaCie share of €4.17.
Great for LaCie, and a pretty questionable move for Seagate. According to their press release, Seagate is essentially purchasing LaCie for its “premium-branded direct-attached storage line, strengthen our network-attached storage business line and enhance our capabilities in software development.” Whether or not that is worth the price of investment is up to Seagate, but to us it sounds like all they need is a nice external enclosure for their drives. We’re oversimplifying obviously, but are we really that far off the mark? One thing’s for certain, Seagate is about to inherit some nifty looking case enclosures.
