Renesas to complete acquisition of Dialog Semiconductor by end of August, nearly $6 billion merger

On August 16, Renesas Electronics announced that the Fair Trade Commission of Taiwan has dropped its review of its acquisition of Dialog.

The transaction has been approved by the United States, China, Germany and other countries. In addition, the acquisition has been approved by Dialog shareholders. If the transaction can be approved by the British regulator, the merger and acquisition procedures are expected to be completed by the end of August.

In February this year, Renesas Electronics announced that it plans to acquire Dialog for 67.5 euros per share in all cash. The transaction is worth approximately 4.9 billion euros (equivalent to 5.9 billion US dollars at the time).

At that time, some people believed that Renesas' agreement to acquire Dialog might face strict scrutiny from British regulators as countries increasingly protect strategic industries such as semiconductors, such as the UK competition regulator's investigation into Nvidia's acquisition of ARM.

But both Renesas and Dialog are optimistic about this. Stephen Simpson, an analyst at Seekingalpha, once said that if Renesas can successfully acquire Intersil in 2017 as a similar transaction of the same type, then there is no reason not to believe that the acquisition of Dialog will pass regulatory review smoothly.

Dialog is an innovative provider of highly integrated and power-efficient mixed-signal ICs, serving a broad range of customers primarily in the Internet of Things, consumer electronics, and high-growth segments of the automotive and industrial end markets.

Renesas Electronics has a 30% global market share in the automotive MCU field, while Dialog's strengths are power management chip design and low-power Bluetooth headsets.

In May this year, Renesas Electronics said it would raise 218.5 billion yen (about US$1.99 billion) through a new share issuance to finance its US$6 billion acquisition of Dialog.