Western Digital completes $4.3 bn acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage

Western Digital Corp (WD) today said that it has completed its $4.3-billion cash-and-stock acquisition of Viviti Technologies (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies - HGST).

California-based WD had in March 2011 proposed to buy GST, for $4.3 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction, a move that would make it the largest manufacturer of mechanical hard-disk drives for computers. (See: Western Digital acquires GST from Hitachi in $4.3-bn cash-and-stock deal). 

WD paid $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million of its shares valued at approximately $0.9 billion. Hitachi now owns approximately 10 per cent of WD shares and has the right to nominate two representatives to the WD board. 

WD will operate WD Technologies and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries. Aggregated revenues of the two companies in 2011 were $15 billion.

The European Commission approved the deal in November 2011 only after WD agreed to sell off some disk-drive production since the EC felt that the HGST acquisition would reduce the number of large manufacturers of mechanical hard-disk drives for computers to three from five.

Post acquisition, WD would hold a 50-per cent market share, while Seagate would hold 40 per cent and Toshiba 10 per cent, according to research by IHS Inc.'s iSuppli.
 
Founded in 1970, WD is one of the storage industry pioneers. The company designs and produces high-performance hard drives and solid state drives. Its storage products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers.