Broomfield-based Sirenza Microdevices has reached a deal to be acquired by Greensboro, N.C.-based RF Micro Devices Inc. for about $900 million.
Sirenza is a radio-frequency-component supplier to communications, consumer, aerospace, defense and homeland-security industries. The company moved to Broomfield from Sunnyvale, Calif., in 2003. It has about 1,000 employees, including about 105 at its Broomfield headquarters in the Interlocken Technology Park.
For that headquarters location, “we haven’t determined how many jobs will be left here in Broomfield, but odds are it will be something less than what it is today,” said Sirenza chief financial officer Chuck Bland. “The bulk of the people left here will probably be engineering and maybe some support areas – maybe some accountants and order-entry people.”
Sirenza also has about 115 employees at a manufacturing facility at Interlocken, which it announced earlier this year it would close, moving the work to Shanghai, China, by the end of 2007. The company does most of its manufacturing in Shanghai and also has a manufacturing facility in Nuremberg, Germany.
Bland said the company may move to another location in the Broomfield area. RF Micro Devices has a design center near Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, which may be consolidated with the Sirenza location, he said.
RF Micro Devices primarily makes radio-frequency components for cellphones. The companies said the combination will create the world’s largest radio-frequency company.
Under the deal, Sirenza shareholders will get 1.7848 shares of RF Micro Devices common stock and $5.56 in cash for each share they own.
It amounts to about $300 million in cash and $600 million in stock. The merger is expected to close in the quarter ending Dec. 29 and is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.
Sirenza chief executive Bob Van Buskirk will relocate to North Carolina and lead a new Multi-Market Products Group at RF Micro Devices.The Sirenza name will not be used, but the operation will essentially become a group within RF Micro Devices.
Sirenza can apply expertise from RF Micro Devices’s cellphone market to Sirenza’s markets, according to Van Buskirk.
RFMD has been a foundry partner of Sirenza’s, manufacturing wafers that Sirenza designed.
Sirenza shares closed at $15.38 Monday, up $1.21, or 8.5 percent. RF Micro Devices shares closed at $6.07, down 14 cents, or 2.3 percent.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-954-1488 or .
