Manufacturing giant Flextronics announced it will buy Finnish mobile-phone design company Microcell Group for $80 million in cash. Flextronics said the move would strengthen its mobile-phone design capabilities by adding Microcell’s expertise in GSM, GPRS and EDGE networks.
“In addition to increasing capabilities for our telecom OEM customers, this acquisition will bolster Flextronics’ ODM initiative in the areas of GSM, GPRS and EDGE mobile-phone technologies,” said Michael Marks, Flextronics’ chief executive officer. “The two companies have had a close working relationship for the past few years during which Flextronics has been a major supplier to Microcell. This long-standing relationship gave us unique insight into their management team, customer relationships and technical capabilities while we evaluated this potential combination.”
Flextronics will also take on $120 million of net liabilities from Microcell. Flextronics’ stock was down slightly following the deal to about $11.20 per share. Flextronics is one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers with revenues this year of $13.4 billion.
