Wingtech's acquisition of NWF: The British government's blockade is invalid?

At the time of the global chip shortage, there is good news in the Chinese semiconductor field! According to relevant sources, the UK's largest chip manufacturer NWF (Newport Wafer Fab) will be sold to the Chinese company Wingtech Technology for $87 million. Nexperia. Now that the acquisition case is progressing smoothly, the biggest thinking of the followers is two points: What is the attitude of the British government? What is the layout of Chinese companies after acquiring the semiconductor chip giants?

Nowadays, semiconductors in the field of science and technology have become one of the important standards for measuring a country, and NWF is one of the few semiconductor chip manufacturers in the UK, and suddenly announced that it will be acquired by a Chinese company, which undoubtedly has invested in the world semiconductor market. A blockbuster. For China's chip industry, this is certainly a big plus, but for the British government, it may be a major earthquake.

First of all, the British government blocked this merger in the name of national security.

According to CNBC reports, Tom Tugendhat, the head of the British Governments China Research Foundation, expressed his concern about the possibility of NWF being taken over in a letter to the British Secretary of Commerce Kwasi Kwaten in June. "I must once again emphasize that the acquisition of the UK's leading 200mm silicon and semiconductor technology development and processing plants by Chinese entities represents a serious national security and economic risk." He wrote in the letter.

And Tom Tugendhat urged the British government to review the transaction in accordance with the National Security and Investment Act introduced in April. This is a law designed to protect domestic technology companies from possible foreign acquisitions. Moreover, the British intelligence agency also solemnly stated that the country's semiconductor technology is far ahead and must not be acquired by Chinese companies, otherwise, the national economy and security will be severely hit.

At present, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has indicated to Congress that he is studying the details of the acquisition and has asked the National Security Advisor to conduct a preliminary investigation. According to British Corporate Law, the government has 30 days to decide whether to release a corporate acquisition or review the case. If it decides to review, it will have 5 years to investigate. When it is finally determined that it is threatening, it has the right to cancel the transaction.

Secondly, British companies look forward to being merged.

Compared with the unpredictable attitude of the British government, companies can be said to be very happy to see success. Achim Kempe, Chief Operating Officer of Nexperia, commented: "We are very pleased to integrate Newport into our global manufacturing facilities. Nexperia has established ambitious growth plans and the acquisition of Newport will meet the growing global demand for semiconductors. Newport The factory has a highly skilled team that plays a key role in ensuring business continuity. We look forward to shaping the future together."

NWF specializes in manufacturing chips for power supply applications in the automotive industry. This chip is now one of the most valued chips in the world market. Through this acquisition, Nexperia owns all the shares of the NWF semiconductor silicon chip factory and also includes related technologies. Can significantly improve its analog IC, mixed-signal, and power semiconductor production capacity, while also significantly increasing the delivery capacity of AEC qualified products and Nexperia's market share.

Third, Wingtech is improving the chip supply chain, and this trend is unstoppable.

After reading the attitude of the British government and enterprises, let's look at the layout of Chinese companies. In fact, this is not the first time a Chinese company has acquired a foreign semiconductor company. Nexperia, which acquired NWF, was also acquired by Chinese company Wingtech from someone else. Nexperia is an integrated device manufacturing company with its own design, manufacturing, and packaging plants, and is strong in the field of analog semiconductors. In 2019, Wingtech Technology completed the acquisition plan of Anshi Semiconductor, which cost 26.8 billion.

Nexperia's products involve 5G mobile communications, smart cars, the Internet of Things, and other popular fields with great development potential. Every year, nearly 100 billion semiconductor products are delivered to the world market, including bipolar transistors, diodes, logic chips, and so on. So when Wingtech acquired Nexperia, it added all its hopes of joining semiconductor research and development to Nexperia. Turn Nexperia into the leading company of Wingtech, leading the entire Wingtech in innovation and research, and development.

The acquisition of NWF, for Wingtech, is a useful supplement to the chip industry. For China, while increasing its own strength, it also solves the world's "core shortage" problem.

Nowadays, chip production capacity is everything. If this acquisition is successful, Wingtech will be expected to share a bigger cake in the global semiconductor market. For the long-term development of China's semiconductor industry, the support of such powerful companies has a good foundation for research and development and production of Chinese chips.