Seagate Privatization, Veritas Deal Approved
[I guess someone should post the Last Waltz announcement for Seagate as a public company, until they take it public again in a couple of years. Only 2% voted against, allegedly. I guess with all of the arbitrageurs in the stock, it isn't that surprising. I'm sure they're popping champagne at Texas Pacific and Silver Lake.]
Seagate Privatization, Veritas Deal Approved
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Reuters) - Shareholders of computer disk drive maker Seagate
Technology Inc. (NYSE:SEG - news) and Veritas Software Corp. (NasdaqNM:VRTS - news)
approved a deal to privatize Seagate for cash and shares of Veritas, the firms said in a statement
on Tuesday.
Under the complex transaction, valued at $20 billion when announced in March, storage software
maker Veritas will buy back the 33 percent of Veritas stock that Seagate owns, in addition to
buying Seagate, the world's biggest hard disk drive maker.
Veritas, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., will then sell Seagate's core operations to Menlo
Park, Calif.-based Silver Lake Ventures and Seagate management.
Veritas shares were off $5-1/4 to $102 on Nasdaq in a generally higher market, shortly after the
result of the vote was announced on Tuesday. Veritas had traded around $142 when the deal was
made public in March, which reduces the value of the transaction. Their 52-week range is $59-1/4 to $174.
Seagate shares were off $2-3/4, or 4.87 percent, to $53-3/4 on the New York Stock exchange. Their 52-week range is $35-3/4 to $79-3/16.
Seagate spokesman Phil Montero said 64 percent of Seagate shareholders had voted for the deal and two percent voted against it, with the rest
abstaining. Veritas was unavailable to comment on details of its vote.
The deal is structured to reduce taxes and to hive off Seagate's holdings in Veritas, which Seagate acquired in exchange for software assets.
Veritas's stellar stock performance has left Seagate holding Veritas shares worth many times its own hard disk drive production unit. |
