Lake Forest-based disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. may have missed out on an attempt to buy its top rival, Seagate Technology LLC, but the reason the deal didn’t come off could bode well in any case.
Recent reports indicated that Western Digital made an offer for Scotts Valley-based Seagate in October. That came as Seagate talked about a sale to Texas private equity firm TPG Capital.
TPG had considered a $7.5 million bid, according to a Bloomberg report. Seagate turned that one down and also rejected a higher bid from Western Digital, according to Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources who were familiar with the talks.
“Western Digital indicated to Seagate it was willing to pay 10% to 50% more than TPG,” according to the report.
A deal with Western Digital could have fallen through because it would have likely brought on anti-trust issues and resulted in a big management shakeup, Bloomberg said.
Seagate sees yearly sales of $11 billion and had a recent market value of about $7 billion. Western Digital sees yearly sales of about $10 billion and had a recent market value of $8 billion. Western Digital is the top maker of disk drives for computers and consumer electronics by shipments, followed closely by Seagate.
Yet Seagate recently said that it ended sale talks because it saw improving conditions ahead.
When talks began in October, “Seagate’s management strongly felt that the stock was undervalued and thus explored buyout opportunities,” said analyst Kaushik Roy of Wedbush Securities Inc. in San Francisco.
“Business conditions have since improved and we believe Seagate management feels the price offered by private equity does not reflect the prospects of the company,” Roy added.
Spierkel Listed
Greg Spierkel, chief executive of Santa Ana technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc., recently got two thumbs up from trade publication Computer Reseller News.
The magazine named Spierkel to its yearly list of the 100 most influential executives in the technology reseller industry.
He was also listed as one of the information technology industry’s top 25 most influential executives by the same publication.
Ingram is the world’s biggest distributor of computers, software and consumer electronics. It’s the biggest company in the county of any type, with yearly sales of $33 billion.
Spierkel has headed Ingram Micro since 2005.
Cybercity Status Check
Orange County ranked No. 14 on a list of the 60 U.S. cities with the most technology jobs in 2009, according to a recent survey from trade group TechAmerica.
The area counted 95,047 tech jobs, which include biotechnology employment, according to TechAmerica’s Cybercities report.
The county’s tech payroll totaled $8.2 billion last year, with an average annual wage of $86,413.
OC counted 5,000 tech companies that combined to account for about 7.7% of private-sector employment.
In 2009, 53 of the 60 cities—including Silicon Valley, which is listed as a single entry—shed tech jobs.
The top 10 cities for jobs were: No. 1 New York; No. 2 Washington, D.C.; No. 3 San Jose/Silicon Valley; No. 4 Boston; No. 5 Dallas/Fort Worth; No. 6 Los Angeles; No. 7 Chicago; No. 8 Seattle; No. 9 Philadelphia; and No. 10 Houston.
‘Smaller Guys’
A local patent lawyer has spent the past year cataloguing new technologies from companies.
Bruce Itchkawitz, an intellectual property lawyer at Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP in Irvine, writes the “OC TechInnovation” blog at https://octechinnovation.com/.
He reports on newly issued patents awarded to local companies. The reports represent “stepping stones to highlight companies that are creating technical innovations in the county, and to educate about the patent process,” Itchkawitz said. “One of the reasons to put it out there is to show that there’s a lot of diverse technology coming out of OC.”
Some of the recent patents filings listed on his blog include one for a safety syringe that uses vacuum pressure to retract the needle, a Duffy boat propeller that operates at lower speeds, a bird deterrent device for buildings and a cooling system for computer graphics cards.
Itchkawitz has been with Knobbe Martens for 11 years. He works with clients to protect their inventions by helping them draft and file patent applications, walking them through the sometimes confusing patent process, and coming up with strategies to build their patent portfolios.
Itchkawitz, who has a doctorate in physics and is a tinkerer himself, said he has a personal interest in some of the innovative devices.
“To me, the smaller guys are more interesting,” he said. “I can’t help but have a special place in my heart for them. Sometimes, all they have is their ideas.”
