April 13, 2004 – Singapore chip tester United Test and Assembly Center Ltd. (UTAC) is purchasing Taiwan’s UltraTera Corp., a memory chip tester, for $475.8 million in stock, according to Reuters.
The deal provides UTAC, which counts Chartered, Infineon, and BroadCom among its customers, with a presence in Taiwan and a complement to its operations in Singapore and China, according to CEO Lee Joon Chung. He added that the deal will be accretive to UTAC’s 2004 earnings before goodwill amortization. The combined company would have combined annual revenues of $178 million; in 2003 the companies posted a combined net loss of $8 million.
It’s the second acquisition by a Singapore test house, following February’s $1.2 billion acquisition of US-based ChipPAC by ST Assembly Test Services (STATS).