Higher bidder emerges for Raspberry Pi maker Premier Farnell

USA electric component distributor Avnet has agreed to buy Premier Farnell Plc for 691 million pounds ($911 million), trumping an earlier offer from Daetwyler Holding AG for the British maker of the Raspberry Pi mini- computer.

Despite that, the board has now withdrawn that recommendation and instead stumped up for Avnet’s cash offer, which delivers a premium of 12.1 per cent over Daetwler’s offer.

Premier Farnell, which operates in 35 countries and stocks some 500,000 products, maintains e-commerce sites under brands including Farnell element14 in Europe, Farnell Newark in Brazil, and Newark element14 in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The Avnet offer – at premium 185p a share in cash – valued Premier Farnell’s issued share capital at about £691m.

Premier Farnell said it had considered various aspects of Avnet’s offer, including valuation, transaction timing, and execution risk, and said it considered the Avnet offer as “superior” compared to Datwyler’s.

The terms of the proposed acquisition are further described in the announcement released today in accordance with Rule 2.7 of the UK Takeover Code and available on Avnet’s website at www.ir.avnet.com.

“The combination of Premier Farnell and Avnet would create a leading high-service global electronic components distributor and represents a strong strategic fit”.

Daetwyler had planned to merge Premier Farnell with its Daetwyler Technical Components UK division, resulting in a global technical parts business with about 4,900 staff and expected revenues of about £1.3bn.

“Bringing these two companies together allows us to capture market share earlier in the design process”, Gerry Fay, president of Avnet’s electronics marketing worldwide, said in a statement.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial adviser to Avnet and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP was the company’s legal counsel.