A report out of Korea suggested that Samsung was in advanced talks with French audio equipment manufacturer Focal for an acquisition. The company was said to be considering this acquisition in order to boost its competitiveness in the audio products business. An unnamed Samsung executive mentioned in the report even claimed that Samsung initially wanted to acquire Danish premium audio maker Bang & Olufsen but the price was deemed to be too high. Samsung then decided to buy Focal for as much as 300 billion won ($265.44 million).
The report was published by the Financial News newspaper of South Korea, it claimed that talks between Samsung and Focal were in the final stages and that Samsung was looking to close the deal by the end of this year. Samsung has sent out an official statement refuting the rumors of a possible acquisition of Focal. “The report from Financial news on acquisition of the French audio equipment maker, Focal, is not true,” it said. Focal has not yet commented on this issue but there's really no need to now that Samsung has taken a strong position on all this.
