Freescale Semiconductor Buyout?

Alchemist253 writes "The New York Times is running an article about a possible leveraged buyout of speciality chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor. Freescale currently makes a variety of embedded processors, microcontrollers, and memory, but is probably best known to the Slashdot crowd as the Motorola spinoff that supplied Apple its PowerPC chips before the shift over to an Intel architecture. From the article, "A consortium of investment firms was near a deal late last night to acquire Freescale Semiconductor... for more than $16 billion, according to people briefed on the negotiations. The deal, if completed, would be the largest leveraged buyout ever in the technology sector, surpassing the $11.3 billion sale of SunGard Data Systems last year.""

Comments

Re:Leveraged Buyout

[Colin Smith]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

TFP is WRONG

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Apple did NOT get the G5 from Freescale. That came from IBM. Apple got the G4's from Freescale so the post is PARTIALLY correct. The PowerPC platform still has a strong presence in the server room and is FAR from dying. It just might not be used for desktop stuff anymore.

Re:TFP is WRONG

[Ilgaz]

If we are speaking about POWER family (not PowerPC) Opteron is very "simple" compared to Power5 or soon to be released Power6 family.

It seems Wiki's enterprise/CPU sections got rid of CPU fanboys,zeaolots (both CISC and RISC) lately and could be trusted for neutral information regarding these stuff.

As a quad G5 owner thanks to Apple move to Intel, like-a-joke non serious claims like "5x faster than G5!" and entire Apple fanboy base becoming Intel fanatics, I felt forced to get all the information which I normally wouldn't care about.

XBox 360 is running a specialised yet Power based CPU having 3 cores for example. PS3 has a very strange CPU which is also specially designed for gaming and entertainment purposes. Still, based on Power.

Based on Wiki, a typical car owner may have purchased 8 or more Power embedded processors along with the car.

Well, you (or anyone got tired of PPC is dead stupidness) should read/reference this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC

and here are the reasons why CISC is still relevant while RISC exists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC#Later_RISC

also if you own a Power based anything (including Mac) http://www.power.org/ (Official site of Arch board)

I am ordinary end user just happen to like PowerPC/RISC platform for my computing needs and I spared my time, pricey data (Opera Mini+GPRS) to read those articles last night. Funny co-incidence that same time a person who has connection to "NY Times" brand was writing such BS article about how Freescale effected by Apple gave up G4.

Lets give a clue: Apple was the smallest customer of FreeScale semiconductor powerpc based CPUs. Unbelievable but true. That is why they (and IBM,recently hating/got rid of end user customers) didn't CARE about Apple move.

"Freescale CEO Michel Mayer said in an email to employees that he was disappointed, but noted that the company's Mac business accounts for less than three per cent of total revenue.

'It is increasingly clear that the center of technology innovation is moving away from the personal computer,' he added. "

Yes, 3%!

I started to wonder if Apple gave PowerPC or PowerPC vendors gave up Apple.

Possibly ungood

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveraged_buyout
The Wiki article on leveraged buyouts is pretty neutral. You have to read between the lines.

From the Wiki article: "Proponents of LBOs claimed that they caused companies to make more efficient use of their resources." That means that you don't want to be the victim of a leveraged buyout and have to defend yourself against it. If you haven't made efficient use of your resources (ie. your assets are worth more than your stock) you could become the victim of corporate raiders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_raid They sell off your assets and your company ceases to exist.

In the nastiest kind of leveraged buyout, the buyers essentially use the company's own money to buy it.

Let's see if Freescale tries to defend itself with a poison pill. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_pill

Geez, this investment stuff is almost as much fun as reading Groklaw.

Re:Leveraged Buyout

[Mr Z]

Motorola/Freescale held up as an example of good management? Maybe other divisions of Motorola, but even then I'm not so sure. As I recall, what became Freescale almost never made a profit when it was Motorola Semiconductor, and just ended up being a training ground for other companies. MSPS just liked to bleed money. That was true even before the tech bubble burst.

I won't comment on Freescale as my employer competes directly with them. I don't mind commenting on old news though.

--Joe