- Along with announcing a $19B deal to acquire SanDisk (SNDK +4.1%), Western Digital (WDC -2%) says it expects to report FQ1 revenue of $3.4B and EPS of $1.56 vs. a consensus of $3.28B and $1.56. Gross margin fell 90 bps Q/Q to 28.9%. With Seagate (STX -0.5%) having warned last week, the revenue outlook appears to confirm analyst suspicions Western gained enterprise hard drive share.
- Of Western's proposed $86.50/share payout to SanDisk, $85.10/share is in cash. The cash portion of the $86.50/share payout drops to $67.50/share if a planned investment in Western by Tsinghua Unigroup subsidiary Unisplendour (for a 15% stake) hasn't closed or is terminated.
- To help finance the deal, Western plans to obtain a whopping $18.4B worth of new debt facilities. It expects to continue paying its dividend, but will suspend its buyback program.
- Cost synergies are expected to reach a $500M/year run rate within 18 months; the deal is expected to be accretive to EPS within 12 months of closing (not surprising given it's mostly in cash). SanDisk's NAND flash manufacturing JV with Toshiba will be maintained.
- By acquiring SanDisk's NAND chip, controller, and SSD IP, and by gaining the ability to source NAND at cost, Western effectively neutralizes the cannibalization threat posed by SSDs/flash storage to its hard drive ops. For now, Seagate continues to rely on 3rd-party flash manufacturers; an alliance with Micron was formed in February.
- SanDisk is trading roughly 10% below Western's offer price.