TAIPEI, Taiwan (April 19, 2007) - Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NASDAQ: SIMO), a leading fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops, and markets universally compatible, high-performance, low-power semiconductor solutions for the multimedia consumer electronics market, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Future Communications IC, Inc., ("FCI") a leading designer of radio frequency integrated circuits (RF ICs) for mobile television and wireless communications based in Seoul, South Korea.
Under the terms of the transaction, Silicon Motion will acquire substantially all of the outstanding common shares of FCI for a total purchase price of US$90 million, which will include a combination of cash, Silicon Motion ordinary shares and options to purchase Silicon Motion's ordinary shares, subject to an adjustment in certain circumstances. Certain outstanding options to purchase FCI shares will be replaced with options to purchase ordinary shares of Silicon Motion. In addition, Silicon Motion has agreed to pay former FCI shareholders up to an additional US$12 million in cash upon the achievement of certain operating and financial milestones in 2007. Among the milestones, in order to be eligible for additional payments, the FCI business is required to generate US$33 million in revenue in 2007.
"We believe Mobile TV represents the next major wave of innovation for the wireless handset industry and we are very excited that FCI will be joining Silicon Motion," said Wallace Kou, President and CEO of Silicon Motion. "Korea, where mobile TV is already well on its way to becoming widely adopted by consumers, is the global market leader in the rollout of mobile TV, and is a test bed for the development of other related cutting-edge advances in mobile handset technologies. This acquisition not only allows us to step into such a favorable environment, it also gives us the opportunity to strengthen our portfolio of solutions for mobile devices, including for multimedia applications."
"Before we set out to do an acquisition, we determined that it would be very important for us to add front-end technology in order to build total solutions for the mobile digital media market. FCI's Mobile TV tuner solutions are used by many of Korea's leading handset manufacturers, and are considered among the best in class in terms of size, power and performance. FCI has shipped over 35 million units of CDMA transceivers and other front-end, as well as Mobile TV tuners which have been used in over 150 phone models. They also own over 30 patents and pending patents, and their margins are similar to our own."
"With this acquisition, we believe that we will be able to offer more comprehensive solutions for mobile devices, including digital audio players, personal media players, navigation devices and mobile handsets that are compatible with a variety of digital audio, video, and multimedia broadcast standards. We also believe that the acquisition will give us a strong presence in the emerging mobile TV market, strengthen our multimedia technological capabilities, enhance our RF design expertise, and improve our ability to service our customers in Korea."
James Yun, CEO of FCI, added, "We look forward to joining Silicon Motion and starting the next chapter in our corporate history. By joining Silicon Motion, we believe we can more effectively grow our RF businesses and achieve synergies by reaping the benefits of economies of scale, global sales coverage and customer relationships, including relationships with leading Taiwanese ODMs. Although we have been able to successfully partner with technology companies to support SIP and SOC solutions in the past, leveraging Silicon Motion's financial and technological strength will enhance our capability going forward."
Silicon Motion anticipates it will finance the cash portion of the transaction, representing up to US$50 million, from its existing cash reserves.
Before the inclusion of FCI acquisitionЎVrelated charges, management expects that the transaction will be slightly accretive to earnings in 2007 and meaningfully accretive in 2008 and beyond.
Needham & Company, LLC served as financial advisor to Silicon Motion. Jefferies Broadview, a division of Jefferies & Company, Inc. served as financial advisor to FCI. The transaction was unanimously approved by the Board of Directors of each company. The transaction is subject to certain regulatory approvals, including merger notification filings in Korea, as well as customary closing conditions, and is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2007.
About Silicon Motion:
Silicon Motion Technology Corporation is a leading fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops, and markets universally compatible, high-performance, low-power semiconductor solutions for the multimedia consumer electronics market. Our semiconductor solutions include controllers used in mobile storage media, such as flash memory cards and USB flash drives, and multimedia systems on a chip, or SoCs, used in digital media devices such as MP3 players, PC cameras, PC servers, multifunctional printers, POS (Point-of-Sales) devices, and broadband multimedia phones.
About FCI:
Privately-held Future Communications IC Inc. is a leading fabless RF IC designer of low power, low cost semiconductor solutions for mobile TV, car television systems, ETC, DAB and CDMA markets. The company's key products that it has been shipping in volume include mobile TV tuners, ETC transceivers, car television systems, as well as CDMA transceivers and other front-end ICs. FCI is based in Seoul, South Korea.