The Munich chip supplier Siltronic cannot be sold to Taiwan. The Federal Ministry of Economics dropped the 4.35 billion euro takeover by its larger competitor GlobalWafers after a 14-month review. The government missed the deadline for the Taiwanese to be released under the Foreign Trade Law. In the end, the time was too short to examine the consequences of the requirements of the Chinese competition authorities for Siltronic, said a ministry spokeswoman. However, GlobalWafers could make a new start, it was said; Whether CEO Doris Hsu wants that, she initially left open.
However, she described the lack of approval from Berlin as “very disappointing”. GlobalWafers will “analyze the German government’s non-decision and examine its impact on our future investment strategy”. The company will decide by Sunday how it will invest the money that GlobalWafers had spent on Siltronic. The construction of a new silicon wafer factory outside of Europe is conceivable in order to expand capacities. The Taiwanese are being courted fiercely from the USA.
The fact that GlobalWafers is apparently not ruling out a second takeover bid caused the Siltronic share to soar by more than eight percent to EUR 125.80 on Tuesday. Stockbrokers are betting that GlobalWafers would then have to offer more because the chip economy has picked up significantly since the first offer in autumn 2020. Then the investment review by the federal government would start again. GlobalWafers still holds 13.7 percent in Siltronic.
The deal is by far the largest takeover that fails due to the German foreign trade law. According to this, the federal government can prohibit companies from outside the EU from entering Germany when it comes to security issues, high and future technologies. This includes topics such as artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, robotics and semiconductors. Wafer manufacturers supply the silicon discs on which the semiconductors are produced to the chip industry.
Robert Habeck’s ministry spared itself a substantive justification by allowing the deadline to elapse. The Greens politician had already demanded in December that Germany and Europe had to produce a growing proportion of microelectronics themselves. The EU Commission wants to present its “Chips Act” in February and support the industry with a two-digit billion sum. The chip emergency in the corona pandemic has shown how dependent Europe is on Asian providers. Among the five largest silicon wafer manufacturers, Siltronic is the only one from Europe.