AEM Singapore, the wholly-owned subsidiary in AEM Holdings, has acquired 26.59% of the outstanding share capital of ATECO Inc. for a consideration of US$3.8 million ($5.1 million) in cash.
ATECO Inc. is a South Korean company that specialises in the design and development of memory test handler solutions targeted at the memory market.
As part of the investment, AEM has been granted the rights to acquire further shares in ATECO, which means it now has a 65% stake in the latter.
Such rights include the right to subscribe for 369,231 convertible preferred shares for a subscription price of KRW2.6 billion ($3.1 million).
AEM is also granted the option to purchase 1.039 million shares from ATECO’s existing shareholders for a purchase price of US$11.0 million.
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The consideration, subscription price and the option purchase price were arrived at after negotiations on a willing-buyer and willing-seller basis, and took into account factors such as the strategic merits of the partnership and the prevailing market conditions.
The book value and net tangible asset value of ATECO as at Sept 30 were KRW2.24 billion and KRW2.76 billion.
According to AEM, it believes that the investment would enable the group to work closely with ATECO and leverage on its unique technology that the latter has applied to the memory market. The investment will also simultaneously provided AEM with access to the South Korean market.
Chandran Nair, the CEO of AEM, says: "We are committed to offering application specific, full-stack capabilities across the various semiconductor device markets. With our investment into ATECO Inc., AEM will be able to work together with ATECO Inc. to offer advanced solutions to the memory market in South Korea, and work on joint development efforts to stay ahead of the curve in test and handling for semiconductor devices.”
Thomas Lee, the CEO of ATECO Inc., adds: “We are excited by the opportunities made available to us through the investment into ATECO Inc. by AEM and the resulting partnership. Combining our leading handler technologies with the strong technology and delivery capabilities from AEM will allow us to deliver industry-leading, highly differentiated, application specific solutions to both the memory and Korean semiconductor markets.”
Shares in AEM closed flat at $3.98 on April 22.
