Montage Technology To Explore Strategic Options, Including Sale

(RTTNews) - China-based chipmaker Montage Technology Group Ltd. (MONT) said Thursday that its board of directors plans to evaluate strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company, in order to increase shareholder value.

The board has retained Stifel, Nicolaus & Co, Inc. as its financial advisor, and O'Melveny & Myers LLP as its legal counsel to assist it in the process. The company noted that there is not timetable for the review.

Montage said that the board is also continuing the review and evaluation of the previously-announced unsolicited preliminary non-binding offer it received from state-owned Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Investment Co., Ltd. or PDSTI to acquire the company for $21.50 per share in cash.

PDSTI is a wholly state-owned limited investment management company directly under Pudong New Area government of Shanghai. By the end of 2013, PDSTI had registered capital of RMB2.6 billion and managed the assets of over RMB10 billion.

Shanghai-based Montage Technology provides various analog and mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for the home entertainment and cloud computing markets. The company, founded in 2004, provides set-top box solutions, including HDTV and SDTV semiconductor solutions, such as tuners, demodulators, and decoders.

MONT closed Wednesday's trading at $20.94, up $0.29 or 1.40 percent on a volume of 554,126 shares.