Analog Devices → Maxim Integrated
The largest US deal of 2020 at the time it was announced: Analog Devices agreed to buy its rival Maxim Integrated for about $21bn in shares, a fixed-ratio merger of two analogue chipmakers whose value had risen to about $28bn by the time China's regulator let it close thirteen months later.
An all-stock deal at 0.63 Analog Devices shares per Maxim share, combining two analogue chipmakers.
- Value
- $21B
- Announced
- July 2020
- Completed
- August 2021
- Sector
- Technology
- Deal type
- acquisition
- Acquirer
- Analog Devices (United States)
- Target
- Maxim Integrated (United States)
Why it mattered
Analog Devices makes the analogue and mixed-signal chips that turn real-world signals — temperature, sound, motion, pressure — into digital data, and it had grown partly by acquisition: Hittite Microwave in 2014, then Linear Technology, agreed in 2016 for about $14.8bn. Maxim, founded in 1983 and based in San Jose, added strength in automotive and data-centre chips, and power-management products built for specific applications, to ADI's industrial, communications and healthcare business. On a pro forma basis the pair had $8.2bn of revenue and more than 10,000 engineers, and a combined enterprise value of over $68bn — scale meant to compete with larger rivals such as Texas Instruments.
The merger agreement was signed on 12 July 2020 and announced the next day. Maxim holders would receive ADI stock worth $78.44 a share on the last pre-announcement price, a premium of about 22%, leaving ADI's existing shareholders with about 69% of the combined company. The companies promised $275m of cost savings by the end of the second year. Shareholders of both companies approved the deal on 8 October 2020, but the last clearance, from China's State Administration for Market Regulation, was not announced until 23 August 2021. The acquisition completed on 26 August 2021, and two Maxim directors, including its chief executive Tunç Doluca, joined ADI's board.
What it left behind
Because the exchange ratio was fixed, the price moved with ADI's shares: at completion the consideration was about $28.0bn of ADI stock, against which ADI recorded $12.4bn of identifiable intangible assets. The combined company reported record revenue of $12bn in fiscal 2022, with gross margin helped by synergies from the acquisition. Customer inventory corrections then caused what ADI called a historic revenue decline, to just over $9.4bn in fiscal 2024, before revenue recovered to $11.0bn in fiscal 2025, up 17%. By November 2025 ADI had booked $591.6m of cumulative net special charges for the Maxim integration and wider reorganisation of its footprint. The deal's plainest lesson concerns currency: with a fixed ratio and a long wait for Beijing, the recorded cost rose by about $7bn without either side renegotiating, so in an all-share merger the buyer's own share price does much of the pricing after signing.