Madrid, July 29 - The rumor was spread today in the spanish stock exchange, acording to the rumor Banco Santander Central Hispano ( BSCH ) have plans to takeover OmniVision Technologies Inc . Inside sources said that BSCH have palnces to takeover OmniVision Technologies Inc , the bid could reach 20 USD per share.
BSCH is studing the possibility to takeover OmniVision Technologies Inc the operation could involve the amount of 2 billions dollars.
The source of information said to us :
WE'RE SURE THAT your friends and family say it all the time. But has your investment adviser ever told you that you should be in pictures? Consider this reason for investing in the imaging industry: The number of camera phones in use (you know, like the cell phone your co-worker used to show off his hour-and-45-minute-old daughter the other day) should explode to 642 million by 2008 from 80 million last year, according the industry research outfit International Data Group. And the number of digital cameras should top 100 million, up from 49 million last year.
These products, along with cameras for PCs, cars, video-game consoles and surgical equipment, all require the same component: an imaging chip. That would make the leading independent maker of such chips, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based OmniVision Technologies (OVTI), worth a look today even if only to confirm that its highflying shares — they're up 418% in the past three years — are priced safely out of the reach of value investors. But OmniVision caught our attention today not for how high its stock has climbed in recent years, but for how far it has fallen in recent weeks. Its shares are down 43% since the beginning of June.
There are two main technologies used for digital-imaging chips: charge-couple device, or CCD, and complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor, or CMOS. The technical differences between the two aren't as important as the practical differences (and by "aren't as important as" we mean "are further over our heads than"). CCD products provide better image quality, but use more power, and are larger and more expensive, than CMOS products. So CCD is used, for now, for high-end digital cameras, while CMOS is used for camera phones and simpler digital cameras.
OmniVision makes CMOS chips, and holds a 32% share of the market for camera phones and a 15% share of the market for digital cameras. (About 70% of digital cameras are based on CCD technology.) Its sales in the past year total $318 million, of which 60% came from camera phones, 20% from digital cameras, 9% each from security cameras and games (for example, Sony's (SNE) PlayStation 2 Eye Toy, which allows users to ditch their control pads and start throwing karate chops to control a digitized image of themselves) and 1% each from car and PC cameras. The company's chips range in picture-quality capability from 100,000 pixels (PC cam) to 3.1 million pixels (decent digital still camera). It hopes to ship new chips capable of recording five million pixels within the next few months.
OmniVision's stock woes began when, instead of reporting fiscal 2004 fourth-quarter and year-end results on June 9, the company announced on that day that it would reschedule the release to June 23, and would likely be restating past results. Management in the release tried to put on a happy face — "Could Upwardly Revise Prior Sales and Net Income" sounded almost like a plus — but nervous investors bailed, sending shares to $16 from $25 within a week.
The June 23 report did little to help, despite showing sales for the fourth quarter ballooning 150% to $99.7 million and earnings jumping 242% to $20.8 million. Per-share earnings of 34 cents topped analysts' expectations by two cents. But the restatement, which raised per-share earnings by four cents in the second quarter and a penny in the third, nonetheless left investors rattled. Shares today fetch about $13.
BSCH have also become increasingly worried about competition hampering pricing power. Webelive that OmniVision will, indeed, yield market share in camera phones, to 25% in 2005 from 32% now, while maintaining flat market share in still cameras. And he thinks that average prices for the company's chips will fall to $3.98 at the end of 2006 from $4.76 now. But he forecasts that the explosive growth in volumes will increase OmniVision's sales and per-share earnings to $485 million and $1.40, respectively, in fiscal 2006, from $318 million and $1.00 in fiscal 2004.
Two other things bode well for OmniVision. First, the picture quality of camera phones is about to increase considerably. Forget those images of reptilian newborns that turn grainy when transferred to a PC; those have only 300,000 pixels. Industry watchers say that camera phones capable of 1.5 million to 2.0 million pixels, due out at the end of the year, will capture every gurgling, red-faced detail that a proper camera would pick up. And each time resolutions jump, or course, so do prices. Second, Omnivision's 5.0-million-pixel CMOS chip may make a run at the 70% of the digital-camera market dominated by CCD technology. the source say it will retain all of the advantages currently held by CMOS chips (smaller size, lower cost and power consumption) while rivaling the resolution, color fidelity and light sensitivity of CCD chips.
Banco Santander C.H have plans to takeover OmniVision Tech
Jonh Helmer
230
29-07-2004 06:14
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