What: Shares of chipmaker Cypress Semiconductor (CY) dropped by 15% during June, according to S&P Capital IQ data. For the past couple of months, the company has been embroiled in a bidding war trying to acquire smaller peer Integrated Silicon Solution (NASDAQ: ISSI). Well, the bidding war is now over -- and Cypress lost.
Source: Cypress Semiconductor June stock chart, data by YCharts.
So what: Cypress was competing with China's Uphill Investment, as both entities wanted to scoop up the smaller chipmaker. Cypress wanted the company to strengthen its position in the automotive chip market. Uphill made a $19.25-per-share offer in March, only for Cypress to offer $19.75 per share. Uphill followed up with $22 per share, and once the ball was back in Cypress' court, it put $22.25 per share on the table. Back to Uphill, the investment group came back with $23 per share. At that point, Cypress said it had enough, putting forth its final offer of $22.60, which was still below Uphill's offer. Integrated Silicon shareholders have now approved the sale to Uphill. The deal values Integrated Silicon at approximately $765 million.
Now what: Thus marks the end of the months-long bidding war. Even though Cypress failed to secure Integrated Silicon, the company is still in a strong position to capitalize on automotive trends. The industrial and automotive segments accounted for 51% of total revenue last quarter, evidence that Cypress is successfully continuing its transition away from mobile toward other markets. Mobile is now just 11% of the business. Shares have now given back most of the gains from last December when Cypress announced that it was merging with Spansion -- a deal that closed in March -- in order to better tackle the automotive market. The combined company is already hard at work on integration in order to realize cost-saving synergies estimated at $135 million per year. Investors shouldn't fret too much about the one that got away.
