Archive Secures Financing for Takeover of Cipher : Acquisitions: With loans of $150 million, the firm will create the nation’s leading independent vendor of computer tape drives.

Archive Corp. said Monday that it had secured $150 million in loans from Barclay’s Bank PLC and a $7.5-million equity investment from a Newport Beach venture capital firm to finance its acquisition of Cipher Data Products Inc.

B.J. Rone, Archive’s chief financial officer, said the money from Barclay’s included a $100-million, five-year term loan and a $50-million revolving credit facility, more than enough to cover the estimated $135-million cost of purchasing San Diego-based Cipher, a rival manufacturer of computer tape drives.

Cipher earlier this month agreed to accept Archive’s sweetened offer of $8.25 per share after initially resisting a $7.50-a-share hostile tender offer. The merger, which will create the nation’s leading independent vendor of computer tape drives, is expected to be completed April 2, Rone said.

Summit Partners, a $400-million venture capital fund, will invest $7.5 million in cash in Archive in exchange for bonds that can be converted to shares of Archive stock at a price of $12.50 each. Archive stock is currently trading around $10.

Rone said the Summit investment enables Archive “to get a little more equity in the company,” noting that the convertible bonds are considered as equity. He said a larger equity financing package was not desirable at this time because management believes that the firm’s stock is undervalued by Wall Street.

Venture capital funds such as Summit are known for investing in start-up companies rather than established, publicly traded firms such as Archive. But Greg Avis, a Summit partner, said that “more and more venture firms are investing in publicly traded companies” and that the investment in Archive was “not atypical of trends in the industry.” He declined to specify why Summit considers Archive to be an attractive investment.

Rone said Archive will spend $123 million to acquire all of Cipher stock, plus $10 million to $12 million for other transaction-related costs.