Freescale Semiconductor

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedded and communications markets. It was bought by a private investor group in 2006, and subsequently merged into NXP Semiconductors in 2015. As of 2003, Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector earned US$5.0 billion in semiconductor sales in 2002 (out of US$27 billion sales for all of Motorola). Motorola announced that their semiconductor division would be divested on October 6, 2003, to create Freescale. Freescale completed its Initial public offering (IPO) on July 16, 2004, at a price of US$13. In its announcement, it estimated the stock price to be US$17.50- 19.50 but following a cooling of the market towards tech stocks, it lowered its price to US$13. Existing shareholders of Motorola stock received 0.110415 shares of Freescale stock for every share of Motorola stock as a dividend which was distributed on December 2, 2004. On September 15, 2006, Freescale agreed to accept a buyout for the sum of$17.6 billion ($40 per share) by a consortium led by the Blackstone Group. Share prices of$13 at the July 2004 IPO had risen to $39.35 in afterhours trading that Friday when the news, rumored that week, broke. A special shareholders meeting on November 13, 2006, voted to accept the buyout offer. The purchase, which closed on December 1, 2006, is reportedly the largest private buyout of a technology company and one of the ten largest buyouts of all time. Freescale filed to go public again on February 11, 2011, and completed its IPO on May 26, 2011. Freescale was traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FSL. At the time of the IPO, the company had$7.6 billion in outstanding debt on its books, and the company was investigated for misconduct related to this IPO. On March 8, 2014, Freescale announced that 20 of its employees were lost aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.