Datum Gets $58-Million Purchase Offer

A New York firm on Tuesday said it has offered to buy Irvine-based Datum Inc. for $58 million in cash or stock.

Frequency Electronics Inc., a manufacturer of electronic devices and a Datum competitor, said it made the proposal to Datum’s board. Frequency Electronics offered $10 a share in cash or 1.06 shares of its common stock for each Datum share, or some combination of the two.

Datum officials could not be reached for comment late Tuesday. Datum director Dan McGurk declined to comment on the offer, saying the board had met to discuss it and that the company would make an announcement soon.

The cash offer represents a 29% premium over Datum’s Tuesday close of $7.75, which was up 3%, or 25 cents. Frequency Electronics shares rose 31 cents, or 3%, to $9.75. The news of the offer came after the market closed.

Datum makes high-performance time and frequency products used to synchronize the flow of information in telecommunications networks.

In its 1999 fiscal year ending April 30, Frequency Electronics earned $1.2 million on sales of $19 million. In Datum’s most recent four quarters, it lost $657,000 on sales of $98.2 million.

Frequency has hired TM Capital Corp. as its financial advisor, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft as its counsel.

Frequency said the combined enterprise will be able to take advantage of each company’s name and position, technical and manufacturing ability and product offerings.