Western Digital is making a big bet on building its hard disk drive portfolio, ponying up $4.3 billion to acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST).
John Coyne, president and CEO of Western Digital, explained that the acquisition would pad out his company’s silicon wafer fabrication and engineering efforts, and bring over top talent amid a constrained recruiting market.
“The unique thing about this transaction is that both companies are successful and both are growing,” Coyne said during a conference call discussing the deal. “That allows us to offer our customers the comfort that existing product lines will continue to be shipped to their requirements at their option.”
Under the terms of the deal, expected to close in the third quarter of this year, Western Digital agreed to pay $3.5 billion in cash and 25 million common shares to Hitachi for its storage division.
Analysts say that the purchase will put Western Digital in a better position to compete with rival Seagate.
Enterprise Storage Forum has the full report on the acquisition.
