In a day of stunning acquisition moves, Seagate Technology Inc moved to leap back ahead of Quantum Corp to the number one spot in the disk drive business by winning agreement in principle to acquire Conner Peripherals Inc in a share exchange. Conner shareholders would receive 0.442 of a Seagate share for each of their Conner shares, valuing the company at an indicated $21 a share, $1,119m all told, against a price in the market ahead of the announcement of $17.25, a price to which it had risen on ill-founded gossip that Samsung Electronics Co was the suitor. Seagate reported turnover of $4,540m in its 1994 fiscal year and Conner had turnover of $2,400m in fiscal 1994; the number two and number three disk manufacturers in the US coming together may well be a cause for concern for anti-trust authorities.
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