Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), Sliver Lake Partners and AlpInvest Partners outbid two other bidding consortia for the controlling stake in Royal Philips Electronics' semiconductor business, which includes mobile-phone chips. The group paid $4.5 billion for an 80.1-percent share in the business, while Philips electronics will own the remaining 19.9 percent of the business. Philips struggled with the business and desired to focus on expanding its reach into the electronics business. KKR and Silver lake have already snatched other tech companies, including the chip division of Agilent Technologies, which they purchased for $2.7 billion a year ago. The private equity firms renamed the chip unit Avago Technologies and sold Avago's printer chip division to Marvell Technologies for $240 million this year. We'll likely see the same story for Philips.
For more about Philips' sales of the majority of its semiconductor business:
- take a look at this report from Red Herring