SAN FRANCISCO—The board of directors of nonvolatile ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) maker Ramtron International Corp. reviewed and rejected a proposal by Cypress Semiconductor Corp. to acquire the firm for $2.48 per share, the company said Monday (June 18).
Ramtron (Colorado Springs, Co.) said the offer "does not reflect the intrinsic value of the company and is not in the best interest of Ramtron stockholders."
Cypress (San Jose, Calif.) last week
went public with the offer to buy Ramtron for roughly $86 million. Cypress said it also bid to acquire Ramtron last year for $3.01 per share.
Ramtron said Monday that its board of directors also authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives to the Cypress bid. The company said its board intends to consider the full range of available options, including the potential sale of the company or continuing with the Company’s current growth plans. Cypress has been invited to participate in this process, Ramtron said.
William Howard, Ramtron’s chairman, said through a statement that Ramtron's board believes that the Cypress proposal fails to reflect the company's competitive position, FRAM intellectual propertyand prospects for long-term growth.
"Under Eric Balzer’s leadership, Ramtron is a transformed company that is now poised to fully exploit the vast untapped opportunity for FRAM-based low energy and high data integrity solutions in the semiconductor market," Howard said. "Over the past 18 months, he has assembled a world-class management team, successfully completed the foundry transition, resolved product supply shortages and implemented processes aimed at accelerating global adoption of FRAM and enlarging the size of the company’s addressable market."
Ramtron said it retained Needham & Co. LLC to serve as the company's financial advisor and Shearman & Sterling LLP to serve as its legal advisor.
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