Divestiture from Motorola and first IPO 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 and would have a temporary name
SPS Spinco. 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.
Buyout 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.
Second IPO 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.
MH370 On March 8, 2014, Freescale announced that 20 of its employees were lost aboard
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
Merger A merger agreement with
NXP Semiconductors was announced in March 2015, to form a billion company. The acquisition closed on December 7, 2015. == Products==