Strategy in TECH...
Credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the credit rating of Wirepath LLC (corporate name of SnapAV) from B2 to B3 in the wake of their announced acquisition of Control4. The primary reason for the downgrade is due to the fact that SnapAV will be forced to increase their debt by an additional $390 million to a new high of $683 million in order to close on this acquisition.
In the wake of the recent announcement about the acquisition of Control4 by SnapAV, all executives associated with this deal have not been available to the media…their lips are sealed. But Control4 is a public company – at least until this deal closes and they go private – and a recent filing gives a dramatic, detailed view of how hard the parties worked to make this deal happen, and why Control4 really, really wanted to be acquired.
Last week’s Strata-gee story on the final liquidation of what remains of Thiel not only drew a huge number of readers, it also sent a big chunk of them on to the auctioneer’s website (McLemore Auctions). Many of those readers who journeyed to the auction were in search of a great deal on a good line of Thiel speakers. But then, in an unexpected twist, a source reached out to Strata-gee to offer a warning to those in search of a great deal on Thiel.
The world exploded this morning with the news that SnapAV and Control4 are merging their operations in a transaction that no one saw coming. Although publicized as a merger, actually SnapAV is acquiring Control4, agreeing to pay $23.91/share in a deal that is worth a total of about $680 million.
Leon Speakers announced this week that it has acquired Terra Speakers in a transaction that is said to offer Leon a greatly expanded portfolio of high performance products targeted for the outdoor and commercial segments. The company says this acquisition provides “new residential and commercial business opportunities” with a company renown for rugged, all-weather outdoor speakers.
C&E Marketing, a manufacturer sales representative firm based in Sunrise, FL announced last week that it has acquired the home AV division of Audio Video Representatives (AVR) based in Marietta, GA. C&E specializes in a wide range of custom integration lines, while AVR represents and distributes both mobile electronics and home AV lines.
Sound United announced yesterday it had completed the acquisition of shuttered high-end brand Classé Audio from former owner Bowers & Wilkins. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The announcement confirms the deal of which Strata-gee reported last month when Sound United quietly entered negotiations to buy the brand.
Less than a week after we questioned whether Chinese manufacturer LeEco would be able to actually complete its proposed $2 billion acquisition of Vizio, we received a note from a Vizio-connected official, saying that “the merger agreement to acquire Vizio will not proceed…” Given our report last week, this shouldn’t be a big surprise to Strata-gee readers…and it certainly was not to us.
Bloomberg is reporting that Chinese mega brand LeEco missed its normal payroll at the end of March, telling employees it would pay them a few days later. While this is a situation that is not unfamiliar to many small business owners, LeEco is anything but your typical small business owner. They are supposedly in the final stages of a $2 billion acquisition of major TV brand Vizio.
But if LeEco can’t make their own payroll…how can they still buy Vizio?
We have confirmed that Peter Tribeman, one of the founding partners and long time President of Atlantic Technology International, will leave the company at the end of this month. It is the end of a 28-year career there and, as we’ve learned, has been in the works for about eighteen months.
