Western Digital Completes SanDisk Acquisition

Western Digital Corporation

revealed that its fully-owned subsidiary, Western Digital Technologies, Inc. has completed the acquisition of SanDisk Corporation

. According to Western Digital, the addition of SanDisk makes it a comprehensive storage solutions provider with an international reach, and an extensive product and technology platform. That included deep expertise in both rotating magnetic storage, as well as, non-volatile memory (NVM). The Company indicated that the debt financing in connection with the transaction was consummated and that the funds obtained earlier from this financing were released from escrow to Western Digital Technologies, Inc. As a result, the integration process would commence immediately through the joint efforts of teams from both companies. The company indicated that Steve Milligan would continue to serve as its CEO while Sanjay Mehrotra, SanDisk's president and CEO, would serve as a member of its Board of Directors, effective immediately. Milligan commented about the developments and said that "Today is a significant day in the history of Western Digital. We are delighted to welcome SanDisk into the Western Digital family. This transformational combination creates a media-agnostic leader in storage technology with a robust portfolio of products and solutions that will address a wide range of applications in almost all of the world's computing and mobile devices." He continued to say, "We are excited to now begin focusing on the many opportunities before us, from leading innovation to bringing the best of what we can offer as a combined company to our customers. In addition, we will begin the work to fully realize the value of this combination through executing on our synergies, generating significant cash flow, as well as rapidly deleveraging our balance sheet, and creating significant long-term value for our shareholders." Western Digital paid $67.50 a share in cash and 0.2387 shares to SanDisk shareholders as part of the terms of the merger deal. Shares of the company traded 0.19% higher on Thursday.