Micron Technology Inc., the biggest U.S. producer of computer memory, agreed to buy chipmaker Numonyx Holdings BV for about $1.27 billion.
Micron will issue 140 million shares to Numonyx’s investors -- Intel Corp., STMicroelectronics NV and Francisco Partners -- according to a statement today. Boise, Idaho-based Micron also will give as many as 10 million additional shares to Numonyx shareholders depending on the stock price.
Micron gains access to Numonyx’s Nor-type flash chips, which go into mobile phones. Handset makers increasingly want to buy packages of different types of semiconductors, giving an edge to a company with a broader range of products, said Betsy Van Hees, a Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst in San Francisco.
“By acquiring Numonyx and its Nor technology, they’re going to be a dominant force in the mobile handset market by their ability to offer multichip packages,” said Van Hees, who has an “outperform” rating on Micron’s stock. “This bodes very well for Micron’s position.”
Micron rose 17 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $9.08 today in New York Stock Exchange trading. The shares have dropped 14 percent this year.
‘Most Comprehensive’
“Acquiring Numonyx brings together two memory leaders and positions Micron to offer the most comprehensive, cost- competitive solutions in the industry to a broad range of customers,” Micron CEO Steve Appleton said in the statement.
Intel, which created Numonyx by spinning off its Nor flash business into a joint venture with STMicroelectronics, had planned to sell shares in Numonyx to the public. Last year’s recession ended those plans, said Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Santa Clara, California-based Intel.
“We think that the combination of the two companies will create a leading market participation in the memory space,” Mulloy said in an interview. “We had hoped for an IPO as a viable exit strategy.”
Nor flash memory is used in mobile phones and handheld gadgets to store the programs that run the devices. Micron also makes Nand flash memory, in a joint venture with Intel, a type of chip that stores data in products such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone.