Motorola to Acquire Symbol Technologies

Motorola Inc. said Tuesday that it would acquire Symbol Technologies Inc. for about $3.9 billion in a deal that expands the world’s second-largest cellphone maker’s presence in the market for business-oriented mobile devices.

The deal for Symbol, which makes portable bar-code scanners and customized hand-held computers, is expected to close this year or early in 2007, pending regulatory clearance and approval by Symbol shareholders, company executives said.

“This is a company we’ve been looking at for some time,” Motorola Chief Executive Ed Zander said in a conference call from Symbol’s headquarters in Holtsville, N.Y. “We really had our hearts set on adding lots of critical mass and critical size inside the enterprise area, and today we do that.”

Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola said it would pay $15 per Symbol share. That’s 18% higher than Symbol’s closing price of $12.71 on Friday, before weekend news reports of an impending deal helped boost the stock to $14.67 on Monday. On Tuesday, Symbol rose 8 cents to close at $14.75 while Motorola fell 2 cents to finish at $24.93.