ABB, the Swiss company that owns Baldor Electric Co. of Fort Smith, said Monday that it is buying Power-One Inc. of Camirillo, Calif., a firm taken public by Stephens Inc. of Little Rock in 1997.
ABB is a publicly traded power and automation technology group based in Zurich. It purchased Baldor in a $4.2 billion deal in 2010. Power-One, traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol PWER, makes power supplies for computers and other electronics.
In a news release, the companies’ boards of directors said they had agreed to a deal whereby ABB would acquire Power-One for $6.35 per share in cash, or $1.03 billion.
Members of the Stephens family and their employees began investing in Power-One in 1995. At one point after the company’s IPO, Stephens interests owned nearly 46 percent of Power-One stock. But Stephens members are no longer listed among the company’s controlling owners. Click here to read more from our partners at ArkansasBusiness.com.