More thoughts about the Intel-Tower acquisition--
Tower Semiconductor: Opportunity or risk?
en.globes.co.il
excerpt:
Vastchenok recalls two other acquisition deals involving Israeli semiconductor companies that were held up waiting for approval from the Chinese regulator but that eventually received approval and were completed. These were the acquisition of Mellanox by Nvidia for $7.36 billion, and the $3.4 billion acquisition of Orbotech by KLA-Tencor.
"I don’t think that the Chinese will want a confrontation with the Americans over Tower particularly," Vastchenok says. "Intel has very close ties with the US administration, and it very much wants this deal, which is one of the best it has ever made.
"So I think that in the end the Chinese will give approval for the deal and it will be closed, as happened with Orbotech and Mellanox. But there’s always regulatory risk, and you can’t get indie the heads of the Chinese.
"Mellanox, for example, was a much more important company to the Chinese than Tower. Mellanox had large sales in China, about a third of its total sales, which were for components for Chinese super-computers. Tower, on the other hand, doesn’t sell much in China. It produces analog chips and sensors, not items critical to the Chinese from a security point of view," Vastchenok points out.
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