Commentary On MOFCOM's Conditional Approval Of NXP's Acquisition Of Freescale

Introduction

On 27 November 2015, the Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM") granted clearance to the proposed acquisition of Freescale Semiconductor Inc. ("Freescale") by NXP Semiconductors N.V. ("NXP"). This is the second conditional clearance case in the 2015 merger review.

NXP is a global semiconductor firm mainly engaged in the design, manufacture and sale of integrated circuits (ICs) and discrete components. Its products are used in various sectors, including the automotive, wireless network infrastructure, lighting, mobile, consumer and computer industries. The target company, Freescale, is mainly engaged in the manufacture and R&D of microcontrollers and digital networking processors (embedded processors). Freescale also provides customized semiconductor products to clients to complement its embedded processing solutions.