Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Vizio Acquired By Chinese TV Maker LeEco For $2 Billion

Irvine-based Vizio, which makes HDTV and other electronics products, is in a deal to be acquired by Chinese television maker LeEco, the two said late Monday, in a deal worth $2 billion. According to the two companies, LeEco will pay $2 billion in cash for Vizio, which is privately held. Vizio is the last TV manufacturer to be based in the United States. LeEco and Vizio said that Vizio's hardware and software business will become wholly owned subsidiaries of LeEco, and Vizio's data business, Inspace, will spin out as a separately owned company. Vizio was founded in 2002 by William Wang, who is the company's CEO. The two companies said that Vizio's headquarters remains in Irvine, and the company's executive team will continue to run the business. The acquisition is the second, billion-dollar-plus acquisition of a technology company in Southern California in the last two weeks; just last week, e-commerce razor company Dollar Shave was acquired by Unilever.

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