Motorola Mobility shareholders approve merger with Google
18 Nov 2011
Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc yesterday said that its shareholders have approved the $12.5-billion deal to be acquired by search giant Google Inc.
Motorola Mobility, run by Dr Sanjay Jha, said that approximately 99 per cent of the shares voting at yesterday's stockholders meeting voted in favour of the merger, which represented approximately 74 per cent of the company's total outstanding shares.
Jha, chairman and CEO of Motorola Mobility, said, ''We are pleased and gratified by the strong support we have received from our stockholders, with more than 99 per cent of the voting shares voting in support of the transaction. We look forward to working with Google to realise the significant value this combination will bring to our stockholders and all the new opportunities it will provide our dedicated employees, customers, and partners.''
In August, Google said it will buy Libertyville, Illinois-based Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in cash and a whopping $2.5 billion if it decided to walk away from the deal. (See: Google to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion)
It is not only Google's biggest deal so far, but also the largest acquisition in the technology industry this year, eclipsing the $9.5 billion purchase in May of Skype by Microsoft from Silver Lake Partners.
Although Motorola makes cell phones exclusively on Android operating system and is one of the largest manufacturers of set top boxes in the US, the deal is more about laying hands on Motorola's trove of more than 17,000 patents on phone technology, nearly thrice the number of patents than Nortel Networks', that were recently acquired by a consortium of technology majors.
