SMART Global Holdings Announces Entry into Embedded Computing Market Through Acquisition of Inforce Computing

Press Release

July 16, 2019

NEWARK, Calif., July 09, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - SMART Global Holdings, Inc. ("SMART") (NASDAQ: SGH) today announced that it has entered the embedded computing market through two acquisitions; Artesyn Embedded Computing, the embedded computing business of Artesyn Embedded Technologies, and Inforce Computing.

The acquisitions are expected to be immediately accretive to EPS.

"These acquisitions represent another milestone in SMART Global's strategy to drive growth and earnings through synergistic M&A," commented Ajay Shah, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SMART Global Holdings. "These will become part of the SMART Specialty Computing business as the products and customers added are complementary to our existing business, expand SMART's target market opportunity and enable the company to cross sell its existing products to new customers."

Artesyn Embedded Computing

Artesyn Embedded Computing, Inc. ("Artesyn EC"), a private company based in Tempe, Arizona, is a leading provider of embedded computing solutions based on open standards such as ATCA®, VMEbus, PCI Express and computer-on-module, with a large portfolio of long-life-cycle products, strong supplier partnerships and long-standing customer relationships.

"Artesyn EC strengthens our product offerings and high-reliability technologies in embedded computing requirements," noted Mr. Shah, "We are also excited to have Artesyn EC's experienced engineering, sales and marketing teams join SMART Global."

As part of the SMART Specialty Compute & Storage Solutions ("SCSS") line of business it will serve a broad range of Defense, Industrial IoT ("IIoT"), Edge Computing, and Communications OEM customers. Artesyn Embedded Computing will become SMART Embedded Computing and leverage our core operational capabilities to gain a foothold at scale in embedded computing markets.

Stephen Dow, President of Artesyn EC, stated, "Today's announcement marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Artesyn EC. We look forward to being able to leverage SMART's established global operations and supply chain, and to invest in our sales channels to enable growth and meet the needs of our expanding markets."

SMART has agreed to acquire Artesyn EC for $80 million in cash from the balance sheet. Approximately $10 million of performance-based additional consideration will be paid if certain agreed-upon targets are achieved over the second half of calendar 2019.

Inforce Computing

SMART Global Holdings also announced today that it has acquired Inforce Computing, Inc. ("Inforce"), a privately held provider of modular embedded computing and IoT solutions targeting applications in Medical Imaging, Video Conferencing, AR/VR Computing, IIoT, Commercial Drones and Robotics.

"We look forward to leveraging Inforce's engineering talent to further develop leading edge system-on-module and single board computer products for IoT applications," added Mr. Shah.

Inforce Computing, based in Fremont, CA, is a fast growing developer of high-performance production-ready ARM® ISA based embedded computing platforms for IoT applications. Enhanced by key partnerships with companies such as Qualcomm and Marvell, Inforce designs and manufactures Snapdragon™ and Marvell® processor-based system-on-modules ("SOMs"), single board computers ("SBCs"), and development kits. Inforce's embedded technologies are enabling the next generation of connected devices.

"Joining SMART is a strong next step in the progression of Inforce," said Jagat Acharya, Chief Executive Officer of Inforce. "By joining SMART, we will be able to scale up and serve our OEM customers' high volume needs through SMART's global reach and to accelerate our investments in sales, marketing, engineering and new product development."

SMART has agreed to acquire Inforce for a total of $12 million in cash and equity consideration. Inforce will also become a part of SCSS.

O'Melveny & Myers LLP is acting as legal counsel to SMART Global Holdings on these transactions.

About SMART Global Holdings

The SMART family of companies, headquartered in the U.S., are leading designers and manufacturers of systems and sub-system/modules serving industry for over 30 years. Through SMART Modular Technologies, the company has been supplying memory modules and sub-system solutions to a broad customer base of leading OEMs in Enterprise Computing, Networking and Communications, Enterprise Storage, Mobile and Industrial Automation markets.

With the addition of Penguin Computing, SGH added Tier 1 Enterprise, Government, Military and Education customers by expanding its serviceable markets into areas requiring specialized computing platforms in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), Advanced Modeling and High Performance Computing (HPC).

Customers rely on SMART as a strategic supplier with application specific products, top tier customer service, product quality, and technical support with engineering, sales and manufacturing locations worldwide.
See www.smartgh.com, www.smartm.com, www.smarth.com, www.smartsscs.com and www.penguincomputing.com for more information.

Investor Contacts:
Karl Motey
Vice President
Strategic Marketing and Business Development
(510) 624-8213
[email protected]

Suzanne Schmidt
Investor Relations
(510) 360-8596
[email protected]