Monday, June 24, 2013

Western Digital Buys sTec

Irvine-based Western Digital and Santa Ana-based sTec, the developer of solid state data storage devices, announced this morning that the two companies are in a merger agreement. According to the two, sTEC is being acquired by HGST, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital, for approximately $340M in cash. The companies said the deal is worth $207M in enterprise value net of sTEC's cash position as of March 31st. The companies said the deal will augment HGST's existing solid state storage capabillities. sTEC was originally part of Orange County-based SimpleTech, before that firm split out its consumer facing hard drive, flash memory, and other businesses from its OEM and industrial flash business, back in 2007. The deal is worth $6.85 per share for sTEC. Both sTec and WD are publicly traded on the NASDAQ.

---