Mellanox is an Israeli company located in the small northern town of Yokneam. The company specializes in products that improve connectivity between data servers and optimize data storage. Mellanox is traded on the NASDAQ under the MLNX symbol and at the time of writing is up better than 8% on the day.
Today it was announced that the Israeli company was being purchased by the American Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), a leader in computer graphics chip technology, for US$ 6.9B, a 17% premium on the Mellanox stock price valuation as of Friday’s close, which was $5.93B. This is the biggest acquisition ever done by Nvidia and according to the terms of the deal, it will buy the entirety of Mellanox outstanding shares for cash at $125 per share.
The sale is the second largest ever of an Israeli company, after Mobileye, which sold to Intel for just over $15B. The deal was shepherded by Mellanox CEO and founder Eyal Waldman.