Contact: Brenon Daly
A week ago, Sonic Solutions announced that it was making its largest-ever acquisition: the $325m cash-and-stock purchase of DivX. While that pending transaction remains the biggest deal that the digital media management vendor has ever considered, it is getting smaller virtually every day. Because of the decline in shares of Sonic Solutions, the price tag for DivX has been trimmed by about $50m, or 15%.
Under terms, Sonic Solutions will hand over $3.75 in cash and about half a share (0.514) for each share of DivX. The cash portion is fixed, so DivX shareholders stand to pocket about $125m from that. On the other hand, the value of the stock component of the proposed transaction varies from day to day, depending on the price of shares of Sonic Solutions.
On the day before Sonic Solutions announced the acquisition, the company’s stock closed at $11.83. Based on that price, DivX shareholders stood to pocket about $200m of equity consideration ($11.83 x 0.514 = $6.18/share x 33 million DivX shares = $200m). With its stock finishing trading Monday at $8.83, the total value of the equity that Sonic Solutions will hand over to DivX shareholders has dropped to $150m. So altogether, the consideration for DivX is about $275m. But the value is headed even lower. On Tuesday, Sonic Solutions shares closed lower — the fifth straight decline since announcing the acquisition.