Acer has announced it has closed out its $710 million acquisition of the struggling U.S. PC vendor Gateway and now owns about 90 percent of outstanding shares of the company, which will function as an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Acer.
"We welcome (Gateway CEO) Ed Coleman and the talented team at Gateway, into the Acer family, and we are delighted by the enthusiasm with which Gateway employees and clients have reacted to joining our group," Acer Chairman and CEO J.T. Wang said in a statement.
The deal was originally announced in August, since then Gateway announced it would exercise an option (financed by Acer) to buy the Paris-based PC maker Packard Bell. Acer has been taking share away from rivals including Dell and Lenovo for the past few months through aggressive marketing and pricing strategies. The Gateway (and Packard Bell) purchase is expected to firmly position the company as the world's third-largest PC vendor, behind HP and Dell.