Rumour: Corsair Involved In Buyout Talks With Francisco Partners

Update: Corsair have responded to these rumours stating they are not true. Corsair IS securing investment from Francisco Partners BUT the deal is NOT a buyout. Corsair have stated the investment is needed so they can continue acquiring other companies and expand their portfolio (like the deal when they acquired Raptor Gaming and Simple Audio).

According to rumours recently submitted regulatory filing shows that Francisco Partners are currently in talks with Corsair about a possible buyout. This comes after Corsair indefinitely postponed an IPO after the relative flop of the Facebook IPO. Corsair said that they would “relaunch [the IPO] when equity conditions are more favorable”.

Now it would appear Corsair are opting for a buyout instead of an IPO. It is expected that Corsair was heavily impacted by the recent downturn in the PC market. Interestingly Francisco Partners was part of the Blackstone Group led consortium that opted out of making a formal bid for a Dell buyout despite showing interest.

As with many financial takeovers and much takeover speculation it should be treated as such, it can rapidly fall apart so its important to stress that nothing has been confirmed yet. This takeover, if it goes ahead and is true, could have significant changes for the company and the products it makes and sells.

For the whole of 2011, Corsair reported around $19 million in net income on $455 million of revenue. Its Q1 2012 earnings were $3 million on $132 million in revenue.

What are your thoughts on Corsair being potentially taken over? Do you think it would have an impact on their product range?

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