Seagate To Buy Maxtor For $1.9 Billion

Daniel Pass (Shorty) Seagate on Wednesday said it would buy rival computer disk-drive maker Maxtor for $1.9 billion in stock.

December 21, 2005 4:09 PM ET in News,

Seagate on Wednesday said it would buy rival computer disk-drive maker Maxtor for $1.9 billion in stock. Under terms of the deal, which is expected to be completed in the second half of 2006, Maxtor shareholders will receive 0.37 shares of Seagate common stock for each Maxtor share they own. Seagate shareholders will own about 84 percent and Maxtor shareholders will own about 16 percent of the new combined company. Seagate said its executive management team will continue to serve in their current roles and the combined company will retain the Seagate name.

The combination is expected to add 10 to 20 percent to Seagate’s cash earnings per share after the first full year of joint operations, Seagate said in a release.

Source: Reuters

12 Comments:

  1. Armo
    21 Dec '05, 9:49 pm

    so is maxto still going to be around under seagate managment, or are they being liquidated

  2. airbornflght
    21 Dec '05, 10:10 pm

    they will most likely disapear.

  3. RWB
    21 Dec '05, 10:32 pm

    Sad day if you ask me.

  4. Armo
    21 Dec '05, 10:36 pm

    indeed, maxtor was my favorie manufactureer, i dont have anything agains seagate, i own a few of their drives. but i loathe WD =\

  5. profdlp
    22 Dec '05, 12:05 am

    While I've been a big supporter of both WD and Maxtor in the past, I've had a number of problems with their drives over the past few years. It seems that as their warranty period shrunk, so did their quality control.

    Over Thanksgiving I replaced my daughters dying 160GB WD drive with a pair of Seagate drives. The WD drive was still under warranty, and was successfully RMA'd. While packing it up I was reminded that this was the second go-round for this drive - it was marked "Recertified". The one I just received was labeled the same way.

    I'll give credit where it's due to WD for being fair and very prompt with their RMA policy, but the Seagate five-year warranty made me a fan before I even left the checkout line at the store.

  6. GrayFox
    22 Dec '05, 2:37 am

    We might start seeing quality products from maxtor now.

  7. lemonlime
    22 Dec '05, 4:20 am

    I have a feeling the hard drive world is going to slowly turn into the 'cpu' and 'gpu' worlds with two major players I like having many options personally..

  8. Tim
    22 Dec '05, 1:53 pm

    I've had a couple Seagate Barracuda drives, one is 1-1/2 years old and one is 4 years old, and both have been running pretty much nonstop for the last year because of folding. They both work great.

  9. Thrax
    22 Dec '05, 2:43 pm

    There are 3 maxtor drives in my home older than 3 years, and 2 WD drives approximately the same age. I've never had an issue with either manufacturer. Ever.

  10. RWB
    23 Dec '05, 3:52 am
    Quoting Thrax

    There are 3 maxtor drives in my home older than 3 years, and 2 WD drives approximately the same age. I've never had an issue with either manufacturer. Ever.

    Same, I've owned Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital and IBM DeathStars..... note the Deathstars and know that I NEVER had any issues with the first three.

    But it still SUCKS that seagate is gonna own Maxtor becuase I do tend to lean towards Maxtor when buying my drives. Gotta have a favorite

  11. Qeldroma
    23 Dec '05, 3:00 pm

    I've owned WD at home, but I use some of the others at work. I think each company has had their ups and downs (who hasn't?) and I personally tend to be loyal to proven products I've personally used that market competively. However, I'm not a fan of watching other good makers vanish for whatever reason. The competition seems to keep the quality/performance races alive and the businesses seeking for that innovative edge that will earn them that #1 seat in the market share area.

    I think that we'll be seeing more and more of AMD/Intel, nVidia/ATI type binary competitions. I'm hoping that is as far as it goes. What I don't want to see are more Microsofts.

  12. GooD
    23 Dec '05, 3:38 pm

    If Seagates Buy Maxtor and transfert goes well, i think in a long time range the resulting big compagny could be the 'only' big HDD maker compagny.

    I like Seagates but i also like competition

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