SanDisk to acquire Fusion-io for $1.1 billion

SanDisk on Monday said that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Fusion-io, a leading maker of high-performance solid-state drives for enterprise and hyperscale datacenters. The takeover will help SanDisk to enter a new market and gain numerous technologies as well as new intellectual property.

“Fusion-io will accelerate our efforts to enable the flash-transformed data center, helping companies better manage increasingly heavy data workloads at a lower total cost of ownership,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, SanDisk president and CEO. “Customers will benefit from the addition of Fusion-io’s leading PCIe solutions to SanDisk’s vertically integrated business model. We look forward to working with the world-class engineering and go-to-market teams from Fusion-io to provide high-value solutions to customers around the world.”

The acquisition of Fusion-io by SanDisk underlines the growing importance of PCI Express-based solid-state drives in the industry. Such drives are used by large companies like Amazon, Google or Facebook to get maximum performance from their storage.

A Fusion-io PCI Express SSD

Fusion-io’s hardware and software solutions offer very high performance and reliability. At present SanDisk’s own SSDs cannot provide anything similar to products by Fusion-io, but with the acquisition of the latter it will be able to serve new customers and markets. Currently Fusion-io has over 7000 customers worldwide, which will be a nice addition to SanDisk’s portfolio of clients.

The acquisition will be an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.1 billion, net of cash assumed. Under the terms of the agreement, SanDisk will commence a tender offer for all outstanding shares of Fusion-io for $11.25 per share in cash. SanDisk will fund the acquisition with cash available on its balance sheet. The transaction, which has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is subject to customary closing conditions, including clearance from relevant regulatory authorities and the completion of the tender offer.

It is expected that the transaction will close in the third quarter of SanDisk’s fiscal 2014 and be accretive to non-GAAP earnings in the second half of SanDisk’s fiscal 2015.

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KitGuru Says: The acquisition of Fusion-io is clearly a logical move by SanDisk. The popularity of Fusion-io’s products will only grow over time since the demand for high-speed storage is increasing.

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