Seagate Technology has revealed plans to acquire a 64.5% stake in LaCie, a manufacturer of consumer storage products in an all-cash transaction worth about $186m.
Seagate stated the deal would accelerate its growth in the expanding consumer storage market, particularly in Europe and Japan, and add strong engineering and software development capabilities, as well as relationships with several key retailers.
Seagate chairman, president and CEO Steve Luczo said LaCie has built an exceptional consumer brand by delivering exciting and innovative high-end products for many years.
"This transaction would bring a highly complementary set of capabilities to Seagate, significantly expand our consumer product offerings, add a premium-branded direct-attached storage line, strengthen our network-attached storage business line and enhance our capabilities in software development," Steve said.
LaCie chairman and CEO Philippe Spruch said with the proliferation of devices and content being shared and stored today, consumer demand for high-quality branded storage solutions continues to grow.
"We are excited about the potential for this combination to benefit customers and employees by creating significant scale and opening up new markets," he added.
Seagate noted the deal should be neutral to the company’s June 2013 fiscal year EPS.
The deal is expected to close in the third calendar quarter of 2012 following relevant governmental approvals after which Spruch would join Seagate and lead the company’s consumer storage products group.
