Mentor Raises Bid for Rival Quickturn Design

Mentor Graphics Corp., a maker of software to design computer chips and circuits, redoubled its efforts to buy rival Quickturn Design Systems Inc. by raising its per-share offer to $14 in cash. Mentor’s new offer, up from $12.13 a share, matches the price that Cadence Design Systems Inc., the largest chip-design software maker, agreed to pay in stock for Quickturn shares earlier this month. Mentor’s cash offer is 1.3% lower than Quickturn’s closing price of $14.19, down 38 cents, on Nasdaq. Mentor said it will seek only a 14.9% stake, or 2.1 million shares, the maximum that can be acquired without triggering Quickturn’s “poison pill” anti-takeover plan, while it tries to persuade San Jose-based Quickturn to negotiate. Cadence agreed earlier this month to buy Quickturn in an all-stock transaction valued at about $253 million. Quickturn has been trying to fend off Mentor since August, when Mentor made its first hostile bid. Quickturn’s future probably won’t be decided without legal maneuvering by Cadence and Mentor that could delay resolution until the second quarter of next year. Shares of San Jose-based Cadence were unchanged at $27.63 on the NYSE, while Wilsonville, Ore.-based Mentor rose 9 cents to close at $7.72 on Nasdaq.