Allegro drawing takeover interest from ON Semiconductor, Bloomberg News reports
March 2 (Reuters) - Sensor integrated circuits provider Allegro Microsystems (ALGM.O), opens new tab is drawing takeover interest from larger competitor ON Semiconductor (ON.O), opens new tab, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday citing people familiar with the matter.
Onsemi has been working with advisers in recent months to pursue Allegro, the Bloomberg report said, adding that its possible other suitors could emerge for Allegro and the company hasn't indicated whether it would be open to a potential sale.
Semiconductor companies interested in bulking up their automotive capabilities could look at buying Allegro, the Bloomberg report further said.
Allegro has a market valuation of $4.11 billion while Onsemi is valued at $19.83 billion, according to LSEG data.
Manchester, New Hampshire-based Allegro on Monday appointed Mike Doogue as its president and CEO, succeeding Vineet Nargolwala.
Onsemi on Tuesday said it had initiated a restructuring plan aimed at reducing operational costs, resulting in the layoff of about 2,400 of its employees across all business divisions worldwide in 2025.
In February, the Phoenix, Arizona-based Onsemi forecast first-quarter revenue below Wall Street expectations, hit by softening demand for its automotive chips.
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The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
As politicians bicker, Scotland faces losing Alexander Dennis
This is all the more so when it comes to manufacturing job losses in Scotland, perhaps because of the extent to which this sector has dwindled over the decades. The news that up to 400 jobs are at risk at Falkirk bus manufacturing firm Alexander Dennis is first and foremost a massive blow to the people directly affected. It means there is a very real prospect of hundreds more people joining the ranks of the unemployed in an area hit hard by the closure of Scotland's only oil refinery at Grangemouth, with the loss of around 400 job losses. It is always disheartening when concerns over widespread job cuts come a distant second in the minds of those seeking to score political points from corporate decisions taken to reduce workforces. Yet, coming so soon after further job cuts were announced by oil and gas giant Harbour Energy in Aberdeen, a move blamed by the company on the UK Government's energy profits levy, the proposed cuts at Alexander Dennis have led to an impression of decline in Scottish industry. Opponents of the Scottish Government have been quick to assert that events at Alexander Dennis are yet more evidence of the administration's flawed strategy and failure to protect industry and jobs. These critics repeatedly point to the delays and cost over-runs in the delivery by the nationalised Ferguson Marine shipyard of two ferries to serve the west coast and the time it has taken to find a buyer for Prestwick Airport, which was taken into state ownership in 2013, in justification of these claims (even though Prestwick is now regularly making profits and beginning to build a lucrative air freight operation). The Scottish Government has also come under for fire failing to deliver the amount of "green" jobs in the transition from oil and gas production to renewable energy that ministers forecast. Read more: But in the matter of Alexander Dennis, which has been part of NFI Group since the North American company acquired the firm for £320 million in 2019, any culpability on the part of the Scottish Government seems hard to discern. Winnipeg-based NFI, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, looks simply to have assessed its costs and concluded that it can save money by consolidating its UK bus body building operations into a single site. Unfortunately for Scotland, the site selected for this work is in Scarborough, not Falkirk. Euan Stainbank, the Scottish Labour MP for Falkirk, said the Scottish Government should have done more to support Alexander Dennis by ordering more buses from domestic manufacturers to serve local networks. He said Greater Manchester had bought more than five times the amount of buses from Alexander Dennis than had been purchased to serve the industry in Scotland. But ultimately in Scotland it is down to private bus companies to decide which manufacturers they wish to buy their vehicles from – not the Scottish Government. Naturally, those fighting to prevent the proposed cuts in Falkirk are urging Scottish ministers to do all they can to stop or limit the amount of redundancies during the consultation period that is now under way. Perhaps there is some financial incentive that can be offered to entice NFI to change its mind, but it is hard to be optimistic. Paul Davies, president and managing director of Alexander Dennis, hinted at the limitations of UK policy when the proposed cuts were announced on Wednesday. 'While stakeholders have been sympathetic of the situation, the stark reality is that current UK policy does not allow for the incentivisation or reward of local content, job retention and creation, nor does it encourage any domestic economic benefit,' he said. 'We have warned of the competitive imbalance for some time and would like to see policy and legislative changes that incentivise the delivery of local benefit where taxpayer money is invested. We strongly believe funding that supports public transport should lead to investment in local jobs, domestic supply chains, technology creation and a recurrent tax base.' There is a certain, painful irony to the situation too. While the Grangemouth refinery was declared by Petroineos to be no longer financially viable in the face of global competition and the drive to net zero, the Alexander Dennis site in Falkirk has been involved in the production of buses powered by electrical batteries and hydrogen, in other words at the cutting edge of modern transport technology. As veteran Scottish politician Kenny MacAskill, leader of the Alba Party, noted, it is 'perverse when Scotland is awash with renewable energy and is the base for the UK's green hydrogen that a company specialising in hydrogen buses is forced to relocate elsewhere'. Sadly, past experience in Scotland suggests that once a company decides to close operations, there is no going back. Petroineos could not be persuaded to change course at Grangemouth, and back in 2009 Diageo proceeded to shut down its Johnnie Walker plant in Kilmarnock despite significant protests at the time. It looks for all the world that the proposed cuts at Alexander Dennis are destined to become another sad chapter in Scottish industrial history, and one that will be especially poignant given the company's proud and long manufacturing legacy.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Scots accountancy chief reveals acquisition plans for Azets
He disclosed the ambition in an exclusive interview with The Herald, in which he underlined the difficulties which the current economic uncertainty was causing clients. Business owners are looking to the firm for advice on how to manage challenges such as the recent rise in employer national insurance contributions and forthcoming changes to inheritance tax against a shifting macroeconomic backdrop that has been rocked by Trump tariffs and geopolitical tensions. The Scottish part of Azets began to take shape in 2017, when Scots accountancy firms Campbell Dallas and Springfords became part of Staffordshire-based Baldwins, which in turn was part of the Cogital Group. Campbell Dallas then merged with long-established Scots accountancy firm Scott Moncrieff under the Cogital umbrella, before Cogital was subsequently rebranded as Azets in 2020. Azets has a presence across the Nordics. Mr Gallanagh had been a partner at Campbell Dallas for nearly 20 years before its acquisition by Azets. Speaking in the Azets office in Braehead, he said the firm's growth over recent years has been powered by a flurry of acquisitions, with turnover on course to reach £330 million in the current financial year. He said the firm will continue to assess potential deals but will be more selective in terms of targets. The most recent deal struck by the firm in Scotland was the acquisition of Paisley-based Milne Craig in August. The acquisition saw more than 90 staff join Azets, lifting the number of people employed at its Braehead base to 320. Read more: Mr Gallanagh, who has been Azets' UK chief executive since 2022, said: 'We are very choosy now on how we acquire. The marketplace is, from a consolidation perspective, getting significantly harder. At one point, we were the only private equity supported firm and now there's about 50 supported in the private equity space. It is getting harder to acquire good businesses, but we are very conscious that we bought some businesses at the outset… that maybe aren't businesses that we would buy now. And we have made some wonderful acquisitions in recent years.' He said that Azets will now only acquire firms that have the potential to enhance its offer or fill a 'geographical white space that we have, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where we are looking at'. Mr Gallanagh declared: 'If you look at the East Anglia side of the UK, you have got a big white gap in there. We are under-represented in London and Birmingham, and we can do a lot more in Manchester, and even in Scotland. There are spaces in Scotland we want to do more. 'We are in discussions with some firms in London and have one in the east side of England. We would be hopeful that we could conclude that before the end of June.' He added: 'It is no longer about just buying businesses for the sake of buying businesses – it is ensuring that they are adding value to what we have and most importantly that their culture is aligned to ours. A lot of our time is spent now on the culture of the business before we acquire, which is really, really key.' Asked to gauge sentiment among the firm's client base, Mr Gallanagh the uncertainty caused by global events and macroeconomic headwinds, including US tariffs, is 'causing concern pretty much across the board'. He said: 'It is across the whole of business, it is not in any particular sector. That uncertainty brings a real nervousness for people. I think the second thing is the changes in tax – the increase in national insurance [and] increase in the living wage which are putting a strain on already strained businesses.' Read more: This pressure has led firms to cut costs, including ESG (environmental, social and governance) and marketing spending, while investment plans are being held back because of changes to agricultural property and business property relief. These changes are part of reforms by the UK Government to raise more money from inheritance tax (IHT). Greig McKnight, Azets' regional managing director for Scotland, said: 'The changing tax environment is on all our clients' minds. Peter referenced the IHT impact – suddenly a lot of business owners have got a change in the landscape. The business property relief is being taken away, so they have got potentially a 20% IHT liability. That is impacting almost all of our clients and that has a knock-on effect on the decisions that they take.' Mr Gallanagh said the IHT changes are seeing family firms 'bringing forward conversations' around inheritance tax, when previously the issue may not have been discussed, in some cases until it was too late. He said: 'Now those conversations can happen up front. We would rather have them upfront without a 20% tax cloud hanging over our heads, but hopefully in the longer term a lot of businesses will have better succession planning in place.'
Daily Record
an hour ago
- Daily Record
Alexander Dennis closure risks leaving communities 'hollowed out' as union calls for public ownership
EXCLUSIVE: The GMB warned repeated job losses across Scotland's manufacturing sector risks leaving communities "hollowed out". A trade union has called for a Scots bus manufacturer to be nationalised if a rescue deal cannot be agreed to prevent 400 job losses. Alexander Dennis Ltd (ADL) announced last week plans to shutter its two factories in Camelon and Larbert and centralise its operations in Yorkshire. The move would bring an end to more than 100 years of bus building in the Falkirk district and comes just weeks after the closure of the oil refinery in nearby Grangemouth. The GMB trade union has today warned that repeated job losses across Scotland's manufacturing sector risks leaving communities "hollowed out". Louise Gilmour, the union's Scottish secretary, branded the threatened closure "absurd" given the demand for more environmentally friendly vehicles. John Swinney last week blamed strict procurement rules on state subsidy on why the Scottish Government was not able to place more orders with the Falkirk-based firm. ADL recently completed work on more than 160 new buses for the Greater Manchester combined authority, which brought bus services back under public control. But buses remain privatised across Scotland - meaning companies can choose to order cheaper imports from China instead of ordering from the UK. In a letter to Swinney and Ian Murray, the Scottish Secretary, Gilmour warned communities were being "hammered". She said: "It is absurd that a country with a bus network as extensive as Scotland's is not able to sustain its only bus manufacturer. "In the long term, procurement rules must be reviewed placing a clear and considerable preference on domestic manufacturing. An industrial strategy which mandates domestic manufacturing content is also needed. "Both governments have a role in delivering this. The public ownership of Scotland's bus networks to place this emphasis in procurement must now be fast tracked. "However, the short-term future of the sites must be secured urgently. Promises of leaving no stone unturned have been heard by our members before. "Our members do not need warm words. They need a strategy with a backbone. If required, the public ownership of the site must be an option." The union chief also said the GMB had written to ADL last month with an offer to work together to secure the Scottish sites, which was rejected by the firm. She added: "The planned closure of these sites are in addition to job losses at Tarmac in East Lothian and the closure of Aggregate Industries in North Lanarkshire as both companies seek to move operations to England. "It also follows the closure of Grangemouth. So not only is Scotland's manufacturing base being hollowed out, these losses are hammering communities in the Falkirk area. "Our members have seen contract after contract for buses go overseas. Our buses are built in China whilst our ferries are built in Poland. They have seen more orders from Manchester local authorities than they have from Scotland. "It is not party political to point this out – it is a fact and a reflection of the clear failures to heed warnings from trade unions. It has only been a few months since Scottish jobs were lost from Alexander Dennis. This should have been foreseen and prevented." The Record asked the Scottish and UK Governments for comment.
