Cadence keeps up merger pace
Less than a month after absorbing a $30 million software company, software giant Cadence Design Systems announces another merger, this one with Cooper & Chyan Technology.
The $420 million deal, pending regulatory and shareholder approval, will consist of a stock swap in which each outstanding share of Cooper & Chyan will be exchanged for 0.85 shares of Cadence. Specializing in electronic design automation, Cadence expects to issue about 11 million shares in the deal, the company said today.
Cadence stock was down 2-1/8 at 35-7/8 in late afternoon trading, while Cooper & Chyan shares were down 1-1/2 at 30.
With about $700 million in annual revenue, including $177 million for the second quarter of 1996, Cadence wants to incorporate Cooper & Chyan's expertise in designing the circuitry that connects various devices on a circuit board. With its own acquisition of UniCAD just completed, Cooper & Chyan posted revenue of $9.4 million for the third quarter ending September 30. Cadence and Cooper also resolved a legal dispute during the quarter.
The goal behind Cadence's current acquisition spree is to produce software to design chips with densely packed transistors. At the "deep sub-micron level" of less than 0.5 microns between transistors, entire systems could be placed on a single integrated circuit by next year, Cadence says.