Apple vendor Dialog Semiconductor was picked up by the Japanese technology giant for $ 6 billion

DLGNF dialog,
+ 8.23%,
whose customers are Apple AAPL,
-0.31%,
Samsung Electronics 005930,
-0.60%,
Panasonic 6752,
+ 2.80%
and Xiaomi 1810,
-0.18%,
said the deal was an “attractive opportunity” for its shareholders and that the board of directors would unanimously recommend the offer.

Shares in Dialog DLG,
+ 16.71%
rose a whopping 21% in early European trading on Monday, before falling back to trade 16.57% higher.

“We believe Renesas’ strong footprint in microcontrollers and system chips would be complementary to the best use of Dialog’s products,” UBS analysts said in a note to customers on Monday.

Renesas 6723,
-3.61%,
one of the world’s largest auto chip suppliers, saw its stock fall 3.61% in Tokyo on Monday, as investors revealed the deal, which is the latest in the company’s four-year acquisition. That included the Japanese company’s acquisition of US company Integrated Device Technology for $ 7.2 billion in 2018.

The Dialog acquisition marks the second time that a UK chip maker has become a target of foreign bidders after Nvidia NVDA,
-0.54%
bought the 9984 from SoftBank Group in September 2020,
+ 4.45%
Arm’s chip division for $ 40 billion.

The deal comes amid strong consolidation in the semiconductor industry in recent months. In October, AMD AMD,
+ 0.07%
bought rival Xilinx XLNX,
+ 0.15%
in a $ 35 billion all-stock deal, while Intel sold its NAND memory unit to SK Hynix in January for $ 9 billion.

The Dialog acquisition could draw the attention of UK regulators, who announced the biggest takeover rule shake up in two decades last year in an effort to protect strategic assets from hostile bidders.

Read: Bids to buy UK companies become tougher as ministers exclude ‘back door’ takeovers from countries like China, Russia and the US

The UK competition regulator said in January that it would launch an investigation into the acquisition of Arm by Nvidia, among other things to determine whether, after the acquisition, Arm will have an “incentive to withdraw, raise prices or improve the quality of its IP down. [intellectual property] licensing services to Nvidia’s rivals. “

Read: Nvidia’s $ 40 billion acquisition of Arm by the UK competition regulator

While it is unlikely that the deal will be investigated by UK regulators, it is the CMA [Competition and Markets Authority] Looking at the recent deal between Nvidia to acquire Arm Holdings from SoftBank, there is a risk that we would keep an eye on it, ”said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, in a note to clients on Monday.

UBS analysts said that given Dialog’s small size and auto / industrial market fragmentation, they would likely have “relatively low” anti-trust risk.