In October, Seagate reportedly rejected a takeover bid from rival Western Digital. If the proposition had gone through, it would have resulted in another huge hardware company. Western Digital was willing to offer as much as 10 to 50 percent more than a competing takeover proposal from TPG Capital, which had already put more than $7.5 billion on the table for Seagate, according to two people with knowledge of the matter cited by Bloomberg.
It appears that the sheer size of the merger was largely responsible for its refusal. A merger would have created a huge amount of product overlap, led to numerous management departures, not to mention the many potential antitrust problems. Seagate has a market value of about $6.9 billion, and while Western Digital has smaller sales, its market value is at a larger $8 billion or so. Unsurprisingly, neither company was willing to comment on the news.
Last week, Seagate ended acquisition talks and started buying back $2 billion of its own shares. Talks collapsed after TPG Capital couldn't find other partners to raise the required amount for the takeover. For now, it looks like Seagate is content with continuing on alone.