C-Cube Microsystems Inc, Milpitas, California has now wrapped up its acquisition of DiviCom Inc for $143m in cash and shares – and buying its neighbor looks a whole lot better deal now that DiviCom has wrapped up the contract to supply the MPEG decoding software for the 3m digital television set-top boxes being made for the Americast consortium by Zenith Electronics Corp under that monster $1,000m contract (CI No 2,984). It is believed, but still not confirmed, that the boxes will run Microware Corp’s David on some variant of the Advanced RISC Machines Ltd ARM RISC. Downside of the deal is that tangible assets at DiviCom are worth so little that C-Cube is going to have to take a monster $133m charge against the current quarter’s figures to account for the acquisition. C-Cube paid $65.7m in cash and issued 2.291m new shares valued at $30.36 a share to buy the privately-held DiviCom.
