BREAKING: Samsung Pulls Out Of Secretive Oz Audio Acquisition

12 months after Phil Newton joined Perth based sound company Nuheara as chief sales officer, it’s been revealed his former company Samsung made a secret bid for the company but pulled out after learning it would have to tell the ASX.

At this stage it’s unknown whether the bid was from Samsung or Samsung subsidiary Harman, a US sound company acquired by Samsung weeks after Newton left Samsung Australia.

Nuheara announced to the ASX yesterday that it was “in the process of conducting a bookbuild for a placement of ordinary shares” and that a “large multinational consumer electronics company” wanted to acquire the company for $0.084 per share.

According to the Australian Financial Review, that “large multinational” was none other than Korean tech giant Samsung, a company for whom Newton worked for 8 years.

After Nuheara told the company they would need to disclose the letter of intent, which would include Samsung’s name, it withdrew from the acquisition.

Samsung had several conditions on the takeover, including that Nuheara divest from its mining interests.

The takeover bid represented an $84 million valuation for the resources-company-cum-headphone-maker, which was originally called Wild Acre Metals when it first listed on the ASX in 2010.

The company pivoted to audio in 2016.

Among its products are the IQbuds BOOST, a A$649 pair of “assistive listening” wireless earbuds designed to bridge the gap between earbuds and hearing aids.

The government’s Hearing Services Program fully subsidies the devices for eligible Australians.

Nuheara shares closed yesterday at $0.055.