By WSJ Staff
Koninklijke Philips NV has sold a majority stake in its
light-emitting diode components and automotive-lighting activities
to a private-equity consortium in a deal that values the business
at about $3.3 billion.
The transaction is part of a long-running overhaul of the Dutch
electronic-equipment group's business.
Philips said earlier this month it plans to spin off the rest of
its lighting business through an initial public offering next year.
Once that happens, the group's will have two main businesses:
medical equipment, such as hospital scanners, and
consumer-lifestyle products, including coffee machines and
shavers.
GO Scale Capital, an investment fund sponsored by GSR Ventures
and Oak Investment Partners, said it would buy an 80.1% stake in
the Philips LED components and automotive-lighting business in a
deal which is expected to be completed in the third quarter of
2015. Philips would retain a 19.9% interest in the business.
The deal includes the transfer of a patent portfolio of more
than 600 patent families related to LED manufacturing and
automotive lighting, GO Scale Capital said.
Sales of the combined businesses were around EUR1.4 billion
($1.9 billion) in 2013, or about 17% of Philips's total lighting
sales.
They primarily manufacture LED components used in products
ranging from televisions and smart phones to traffic lights as well
as automobiles.
Philips' decision to shed its lighting businesses in one form or
another echoe the move by German engineering group Siemens AG which
last year listed Osram Licht AG, its lighting business, having
previously separated it from the main group. Philips Lighting and
Osram compete with the lighting division of General Electric
Co.
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