Motorola buys chip plant
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April 21, 2000: 4:18 a.m. ET
Mobile-phone maker to invest $2B, largest-ever U.S. spend in Europe
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Motorola plans to invest £1.3 billion ($2.1 billion) in developing a semiconductor factory in Scotland that Korea's Hyundai built four years ago but never opened.
The U.S. electronics firm, the world's second-biggest maker of mobile phones, plans to convert the mothballed factory near Edinburgh into Europe's largest semiconductor plant, employing 1,350 people within a year.
The deal is the largest-ever investment in a production facility by a U.S. company in Europe and will boost Scotland's already booming electronics industry, concentrated in an area known as "Silicon Glen" between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
"Our deal puts Scotland and therefore Britain at the heart of the global microelectronics industry," David Brown, chairman of Motorola's U.K. operation, said in a statement.
Hyundai dropped its plans to develop the plant after flirting with bankruptcy during Asia's economic crisis in 1997. Its withdrawal dealt a bitter blow to an area of high unemployment, which includes the electoral district of British finance minister Gordon Brown.
Press reports said Motorola was paying around $160 million for the facility. The company is already the largest manufacturing employer in Scotland, with a total workforce of 6,500 at three plants in South Queensferry, East Kilbride, and Easter Inch.
Motorola (MOT: Research, Estimates) shares closed up 3-/34 at 111 Thursday.
-- from staff and wire reports
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Motorola
Hyundai Group
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