Now, let’s turn our attention to WDC. WDC (NASDAQ:WDC) is a stock the Fund has owned for a decade and one from which we have extracted substantial realized gains over the years. In October, WDC announced they would acquire Sandisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) for $19 billion, and many shareholders were surprised by WDC’s decision.
SNDK (NASDAQ:SNDK) is a major player in the NAND flash market and holds some of the most important NAND patents, for which it receives royalties, but some investors believe SNDK is lagging Samsung’s new NAND flash chip architecture (called 3D). NAND flash semiconductor chips are the chips used in Apple iPhones, Android phones, iPads, digital cameras, and a host of other technology equipment to store information and images.
Our perspective is that WDC will be able save a substantial amount of money by having a captive source of NAND flash chips for its enterprise Solid-state Drive (SSD) products. The company believes it will save $30 million for every $100 million of enterprise SSD revenues it achieves. WDC currently has approximately $1 billion of enterprise SSD sales, and storage analysts believe the market could triple in size over the next five years. Assuming WDC maintains its market share and industry analysts are correct about the growth rate for enterprise SSDs, we believe WDC could save upwards of $1 billion within five years by acquiring SNDK. If one were to capitalize the potential $1 billion savings at a 10x multiple, WDC would be paying an adjusted $9 billion for the existing SNDK business or roughly 6x SNDK’s last twelve-months EBITDA.
Furthermore, WDC is among the largest companies in the enterprise SSD niche, and the company will be able to leverage its customer base, industry knowledge, and software it has in the enterprise Hard-disk Drive (HDD) business to go after adjacent markets with new SSD products and capture more growth and profitability in the future. These potential revenue synergies are real but difficult to quantify in a fast-growing market, and we have not incorporated them into our valuation analysis.
Paradoxically, other investors sold off WDC because HDDs are slowly being replaced by SSDs. While we do not think it as simple as one SSD replacing one HDD, even if that were the case, WDC’s acquisition of SNDK mitigates that risk. Frankly, the demand for storage is growing so fast that both technologies will be required years into the future, and in the some ways demand for HDDs is being enhanced by newer, faster SSDs that are opening up new markets like hyper-scale computing and big-data analytics.
Based on the current revenues of both companies, the recent announcement by the Chinese regulator MOFCOM4 to allow WDC to fully integrate its two separate HDD businesses, and the cost, but not revenue, synergies of combining WDC with SNDK, we believe WDC owner’s earning could reach over $10 per share after the deal closes. Thus, with WDC trading down to $60, and less recently, we believe the shares are attractively priced and we added to the position in the fourth quarter.
From FPA Capital Fund (Trades, Portfolio)'s fourth quarter 2015 commentary.
