Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Entegris (ENTG 0.46%) rose more than 11% Tuesday after it announced an acquisition following solid fourth quarter results.
So what: Quarterly sales rose 11% year over year to $186.3 million, which translated to adjusted earnings of $0.18 per share. Analysts, on average, were expecting Entegris to report earnings of just $0.13 per share on sales of $170.82 million.
In addition, Entegris announced it has agreed to acquire semiconductor materials and packaging specliast ATMI for $34 per share in a deal valued at $1.15 billion.
Now what: The transaction is anticipated to close sometime in Q2, boasts annual cost synergies of $30 million, and should be immediately accretive to Entegris' non-GAAP earnings per share. What's more, Entegris says the combined companies' cash flow generation should enable accelerated debt repayments -- a great thing considering they'll need to take on some new debt to cover the purchase -- resulting in even more significant earnings leverage down the road.
Assuming the acquisition goes off without a hitch, the deal does seem like a win-win for everybody involved. With shares of Entegris currently trading at a reasonable 17.6 times next year's estimated earnings, I think investors would be wise to -- at the very least -- add Entegris to their watch lists to keep tabs on its progress.
