Silver Lake Partners has acquired a minority stake in Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRD), a Shanghai-based chipmaker. No financial terms were disclosed. Spreadtrum’s current market cap is approximately $277 million.
PRESS RELEASE
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRD; “Spreadtrum”), one of China’s leading fabless semiconductor providers supporting both 2G and 3G wireless communications standards, and Silver Lake, one of the world’s preeminent technology investors, today jointly announced that Silver Lake has acquired a minority stake in the Shanghai-based company.
“We are very pleased to have Silver Lake become not only one of the largest shareholders of our company, but also an important strategic partner,” said Dr. Leo Li, President and CEO of Spreadtrum. “We believe that Silver Lake’s deep domain expertise and extensive industry network will benefit Spreadtrum significantly. We look forward to our partnership with Silver Lake as we enter our next phase of growth.”
Dr. Eric Chen, Managing Director at Silver Lake, said, “We believe Spreadtrum will be a key enabler of China’s home-grown 3G national wireless standard, representing the power of technological innovation in the Chinese economy.” He added, “The management team has put the company on a convincing growth trajectory and we are excited about Spreadtrum’s prospects as China becomes home to globally competitive fabless semiconductor players over the coming decade. We are committed to working with the company to seek transformative growth opportunities.”
Ken Hao, Managing Director and head of Silver Lake’s Asia investment team, added, “Spreadtrum fits perfectly into Silver Lake’s investment strategy of partnering with the world’s leading technology franchises. We are excited about the opportunities of investing in emerging global technology leaders in the Asia region and pleased to announce this transaction as Silver Lake’s inaugural investment in a Chinese-based entity. We look forward to working closely with Spreadtrum to execute its growth strategy.”
About Spreadtrum
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRD; “Spreadtrum”) is a fabless semiconductor company that develops baseband and RF processor solutions for the wireless communications market. Spreadtrum combines its semiconductor design expertise with its software development capabilities to deliver highly- integrated baseband processors with multimedia functionality and power management. Spreadtrum has developed its solutions based on an open development platform, enabling its customers to develop customized wireless products that are feature-rich to meet their cost and time-to-market requirements.
About Silver Lake
Silver Lake is the leader in private investments in technology, technology enabled, and related growth industries. Silver Lake invests with the strategic and operational insights of an experienced industry participant. The firm has over 90 investment professionals located in New York, Menlo Park, San Francisco, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo and manages over $14 billion across large cap and middle market private investment strategies as well as a credit investment strategy. Its portfolio includes or has included technology industry leaders such as Avago, Avaya, Business Objects, CDW, Flextronics, Gartner, Gerson Lehrman, Instinet, Intelsat, NASDAQ, NXP, Sabre / Travelocity, Seagate Technology, Skype, SunGard Data Systems, Thomson and UnityMedia. For more information, please visit http://www.silverlake.com .
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