By Milana Vinn and Amy-Jo Crowley
NEW YORK/ LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) – BE Semiconductor Industries has been fielding takeover interest, as demand for its chip-packaging technology has become more critical for semiconductor equipment makers, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The Amsterdam-listed chip equipment maker, which has a market value of 14 billion euros ($16.20 billion), has been working with investment bank Morgan Stanley to evaluate the approaches, two of the people said, requesting anonymity as the discussions are confidential.
U.S. chip-equipment maker Lam Research is among the suitors that have held discussions with the Dutch company, one of the people said. Other potentially interested parties include equipment manufacturer Applied Materials, which acquired a 9% stake in BESI in April last year and became its largest shareholder, that person and a fourth one said. All four people spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.
The talks, which started in mid-2025, hit a pause earlier this year after rising tensions between the U.S. and European Union over U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempts to control Greenland, one of the people said. The acquisition of a Dutch firm with strategic technology would be subject to a national security review. However, bidders including Lam Research remain interested in BESI and have held talks recently, this person said.
BESI, Morgan Stanley and Applied Materials declined to comment, while Lam Research did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In 2024, BESI said it remained committed to executing on its strategy as an independent company, citing media reports of a strategic deal involving the company.
The interest highlights the strategic value of BESI’s advanced packaging, which is expected to help enable new generations of chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing.
Advanced packaging is currently a key bottleneck for the industry. BESI and Applied Materials have been long-term partners on hybrid bonding. The technology directly links chips with copper-to-copper connections, allowing for faster data transfer and lower power consumption in advanced semiconductors.
In April, Degroof Petercam analyst Michael Roeg said BESI shareholders “will assume that Applied Materials will eventually want to buy the entire company.”
($1 = 0.8639 euros)
(Reporting by Milana Vinn in New York and Amy-Jo Crowley in London, additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Anousha Sakoui, Echo Wang, Aurora Ellis and Stephen Coates)
