DDi Corp.’s days as a standalone public company are numbered.
The Anaheim-based circuit board maker is set to be acquired by competitor Viasystems Group Inc. of St. Louis, ending its 12-year stint as a Nasdaq-listed stock.
Viasystems, which itself trades on the Nasdaq under the VIAS ticker, expects to complete its $268 million acquisition of DDI in the late second quarter or early third quarter.
Investors signaled approval for the deal when it was announced on April 4, pushing DDi shares up 5.5% to a market value of about $263 million. The stock has crept a bit higher since.
The deal price represents a 20% premium on DDI’s average share price for three months prior to the announcement. Terms of the agreement were unanimously approved by the boards of both companies.
DDi makes circuit boards that later are assembled with chips. The boards go inside equipment for aerospace, military, industrial, medical, networking and communication uses.
DDi is No. 41 on our list of largest public companies based in Orange County (see List, page 12; related stories throughout issue). The company built its name in the industry by turning around circuit boards quickly, with most orders completed in less than 10 days.
The DDi acquisition will increase Viasystems’ market share in the military and aerospace market, as well as in the growing industrial and instrumentation segment. It also will broaden customer base with DDi’s ever-changing roster of customers.
Flexible
DDi has positioned itself as more flexible and nimble than its many competitors. No single customer accounted for more than 5% of DDi’s revenue of $263.3 million in 2011, down 1.6% from a year earlier.
Viasystems is projected to have annual revenue of $1.3 billion and 15,650 employees once its DDi acquisition is completed.
DDi employs has about 360 workers in Anaheim and 1,600 companywide. It also has manufacturing operations in Milpitas, Virginia, Ohio, Colorado and Canada, and a data center in Texas.
Neither DDi nor Viasystems has commented on the potential effects of the deal on OC operations.
DDi appears to be positioned to maintain a sizeable presence here. It recently announced plans to move into new quarters—down the street from its current eight-building campus in Anaheim—that cost 7.5 million. It’s expected to move in by the end of the third quarter, when a lease expires on the company’s home of more than 30 years.
DDi traces its roots to Details Inc., an Anaheim company founded in 1978 by Jim Swenson who sold the company to other managers in 1997. Boston-based Bain Capital Funds, Chase Manhattan Entities of New York and Celerity Partners LLC in Los Angeles led a $62.4 million recapitalization.
Details later merged with Dynamic Circuits Inc., a San Jose-based company founded by Charles D. Dimick, who became DDis chairman. DDi veteran Bruce McMaster became chief executive and participated in the 1997 management-led buyout.
Tough Timing
The company went public in April 2000, just as the dot.com bubble burst. The Nasdaq Composite Index sunk 300 points on the first day of trading for DDi shares.
It took months for the stock to recover, and DDi’s choppy ride lasted even longer. The company emerged from court-supervised bankruptcy reorganization in 2003.
DDi did better than many companies in getting through the dot-com bust, Chief Executive Mikel Williams recalled in a January interview.
“A good number of companies went away,” he said. “DDi did not go away.”
