Smart Global Holdings Acquires Artesyn and Inforce Computing for $92 Million

SMART Global Holdings, Inc. is entering the embedded computing market through two acquisitions: Artesyn Embedded Computing, Inc., the embedded computing business of Artesyn Embedded Technologies, and Inforce Computing, Inc.

The acquisitions are expected to be immediately accretive to EPS.

“These acquisitions represent another milestone in SMART Global’s strategy to drive growth and earnings through synergistic M&A,” commented Ajay Shah, chairman and CEO, SMART Global Holdings. “These will become part of the SMART Specialty Computing business as the products and customers added are complementary to our existing business, expand SMART’s target market opportunity and enable the company to cross-sell its existing products to new customers.”

Artesyn Embedded Computing
Artesyn Embedded Computing, a private company based in Arizona, is a provider of embedded computing solutions based on open standards such as ATCA, VMEbus, PCIe and computer-on-module, with a portfolio of long-life-cycle products, strong supplier partnerships and long-standing customer relationships.

Artesys CY18 end market and product mix

“Artesyn EC strengthens our product offerings and high-reliability technologies in embedded computing requirements,” noted Shah, “We are also excited to have Artesyn EC’s experienced engineering, sales and marketing teams join SMART Global.“

As part of the SMART Specialty Compute and Storage Solutions (SCSS) line of business it will serve a range of defense, industrial IoT (IIoT), edge computing, and communications OEM customers. Artesyn EC will become SMART Embedded Computing and leverage our core operational capabilities to gain a foothold at scale in embedded computing markets.

Stephen Dow, president, Artesyn EC, said: “Today’s announcement marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Artesyn EC. We look forward to being able to leverage SMART’s established global operations and supply chain, and to invest in our sales channels to enable growth and meet the needs of our expanding markets.”

SMART has agreed to acquire Artesyn EC for $80 million in cash from the balance sheet. Performance-based considerations of approximately $10 million also will be paid if certain agreed-upon targets are achieved over the second half of this calendar year.

Inforce Computing
SMART Global Holdings also announced that it has acquired Inforce Computing, a privately-held provider of modular embedded computing and IoT solutions targeting applications in medical imaging, video conferencing, AR/VR computing, IIoT, commercial drones and robotics.

“We look forward to leveraging Inforce’s engineering talent to further develop leading edge system-on-module and single board computer products for IoT applications,” added Shah.

Inforce Computing, based in California, is a growing developer of high-performance production-ready ARM ISA-based embedded computing platforms for IoT applications. Enhanced by partnerships with companies such as Qualcomm and Marvell, Inforce designs and manufactures Snapdragon and Marvell processor-based system-on-modules (SOMs), single board computers (SBCs), and development kits. Its embedded technologies are enabling the next generation of connected devices.

“Joining SMART is a strong next step in the progression of Inforce,” said Jagat Acharya, CEO, Inforce. “By joining SMART, we will be able to scale up and serve our OEM customers’ high-volume needs through SMART’s global reach and to accelerate our investments in sales, marketing, engineering and new product development.”

SMART has agreed to acquire Inforce for a total of $12 million in cash and equity consideration. Inforce will also become a part of SCSS.

O’Melveny & Myers LLP is acting as legal counsel to SMART Global Holdings on these transactions.