Transmeta takeover threatened by lawyers
Attorneys corral shareholders for class action suit
Novafora's takeover of Transmeta could be threatened by a class action lawsuit from disgruntled shareholders.
Lawyers Levi and Korsinsky are calling on shareholders to join a class action case against Transmeta because, they say, the takeover is unfair.
As we reported yesterday Novafora is offering $255.6m for the company, or between $18.70 and $19.00 per share.
But Transmeta's third quarter result statement, also released Monday, said: "Transmeta's cash, cash equivalents and short term investments at September 30, 2008 totaled $255.2m."
Or as the lawyers put it: "The price is unfair given that, as of September 20, 2008, the Company had $255m in cash and cash equivalents. The offer price, in effect, values the Company’s operations and intellectual property at zero."
They are asking shareholders to register for a class action against Transmeta. The lawyers' statement is here.
Transmeta launched with promises to radically change the market for low power chips for mini-notebooks. It gave up manufacturing in 2005 to concentrate on licensing its intellectual property to other chip makers. ®
COMMENTS
Rich get Richer, rest get shafted
1.Will Mgt gets bonuses to sell out.
2. If patent '061 is upheld the IP is worth hundreds of millions and forces US companies to spend royalties to foreigners
3. How come AMD got such a sweetheart deal?
4. Are there fiscal incentives for 1&2&3 above?
5.Are the “leading venture capital firms” that support Nova the same venture capital firms represented on TMTA’s BOD?
6. What about TMSC and foundries? What about Efficion and potential defence related applications of it's architecture? Another attempt to end run FTC like earlier culturecomm fiasco.
7. WHY must the company be sold for cash value only, when there's a demonstrable revenue stream from it's IP?
8. WHY must jobs be outsources to foreign nations?
Liabilities? None!
To address an exsisting comment - Transmeta has zero debt, no liability and a revenue stream that was worth approx $300M in the prior 12 months.
STILL want to give these corpoarte raiders excuses?
What's SAd is that no journo wants to go ask some piercing questions of the rich gets richer crew!
Insider stitch up
The company has no debt and with only 30 employees minimal liabilities. Forget about x86 emulation that is old history. Transmeta have in the last year licenced their power saving technology to Intel and nvidia for significant fees. Also they have patents critical to transistor back-biasing techniques progressing through the system. The nvidia CEO is on record as saying that transmeta's Ip is critical and that eventually many would have to licence.
So it would appear that at the critical moment where the market is finally moving towards them (65nm and lower geometries) transmeta's board have found a way to take the valuable IP out of public ownership for nothing.
You have got to be kidding!
The minority shareholders of Transmeta are about to be fleeced. How can you (as a company) receive over $285 million in the last year for licensing your IP and being told less than three months ago by the CEO that your IP is valuable and now the CEO and Board of Directors are going to sell the company for $255 million when that is equal to or less than the cash on the company books, and no debt. Essentially selling the company and IP for zero $. There is something very strange going on here and any reputable reporter should be investigating to find out what that is. Who is it that stands to benefit from this deal? Obviously not the minority shareholders.
Actually it's very good value for money.
Sure, Transmetta will probably lose another $20M or so before the deal goes through, but for that twenty million the investors will get the best media spin doctors in the industry (Apart from the Vista sales team, natch!)
Mind you, they'll also get the best money wasters in the industry too. (Apart from the guys who sign purchasse orders for Vista, naturally!)
