Iomega Rejects EMC Buyout Offer

Storage vendor Iomega has rejected an unsolicited $180 million takeover bid from information management and storage infrastructure firm EMC.

It seems to be the season of unsolicited takeover offers: first Microsoft makes a major bid for Yahoo, and now companies everywhere are getting in on the sudden buy-out act. Storage developer Iomega announced today that it has rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from information management and storage infrastructure provider EMC. EMC apparently offered to acquire all outstanding Iomega stock for $3.25 a share: with 54.8 million outstanding shares, the offfer would total just under $180 million. Iomega says its board unanimously rejected the bid, claiming it "would not reasonably constitute a superior proposal" and "proposed due diligence contingencies were overly broad."

Iomega primarily manufactures and distributes computer storage solutions, including many storage products aimed at consumers. The company recently announced plans to purchase Chinese drive maker ExcelStor in a $315 million all-stock deal. The acquisition has Iomega issuing 84 million shares of stock, and ExcelSTor’s CEO Eddie Lui moving into a role as Iomega’s chairman.

EMC’s interest in adding its own storage manufacturer to its business is presumably to provide its customers with end-to-end solutions for data backup, information management, and storage. With a storage manufacturer in-house, EMC could offer its enterprise customers total data management solutions that included software and data processing infrastructure and physical hardware.

[Updated to correct total amount of EMC offer.]