The Interview diner

On the day of the deal, stock price went up by about 40%, so the market appreciated that deal. It should be very successful. When the deal finishes, which we expect to be in the fourth quarter, the money will go back to the shareholders.

Q

Were there any challenges that needed to be overcome?

I’d say there were many! The first one is that the business we were selling was not an established business, so there were no financial statements or legal entity. In many acquisitions, you say ‘here’s the shares’ and they buy the shares. For this acquisition, we had to put together a list of what we were selling to them and define everything, which was very complex and took a lot of work.

Secondly, we were providing Samsung with a licence to use our technology. It was difficult to do, as we were saying they have the right to use our technology in certain areas, like handsets and tablets, but not in other areas, such as automobiles or headsets.

The third thing would be a logistical issue; it was very much a global transaction. We had people involved in London, California, Korea, Hong Kong, and it was very challenging.

Q Contact:

2011 saw global economic turmoil; do you think this has impacted on your 2012 strategy?

There hasn’t been global economic growth for

Will Gardner CSR Email: Jo.Deal@csr.com

years, since the time of the Lehman collapse in 2008. It’s been a fundamental backdrop to everything we have been doing. Regardless, we have been proceeding with some substantial strategic changes at CSR, regardless of the economic environment.

I joined CSR in 2008 and realised that CSR has very strong technology and a strong financial position, but that strategically, we were quite reliant on one technology, Bluetooth and one market segment, handsets. So we set about changing that – investing organically in other technologies and segments, and doing several substantial acquisitions. We now are very strong in Bluetooth, wifi, GPS, audio and imaging. We have leading market positions in wireless audio, in automotive, in printing and in cameras. We are developing some very exciting new technologies in BT Smart and Indoor Location. The final step in that transformation was to exit the handset market, and we are very pleased to have done that in a way that allowed us to return almost $300m to our shareholders.

The company is a world leader in creating technologies that really impact on consumers’ lives, technologies that consumers really love.