SiliconBeat

Zilog’s latest suitor appears to have lost interest. A day after the San Jose chip maker set a May 30 date for its formal response to IXYS’s offer to buy the company for $4.50 a share, the Milpitas maker of power-supply semiconductors said in a filing it had lowered its stake in Zilog to below 5 percent.

On Tuesday, Zilog’s chief executive sent a letter to his counterpart at IXYS saying it had filed an investor presentation with the SEC illustrating details of its “three-year strategic plan.” Not surprisingly, most of the bars on the right side of the charts in the visual display — the ones footnoted as estimates — are considerably higher than recent results to the left. The illustration pictured at the top is taken from the presentation and gives you a visual sense at its basic message.

In his letter, Zilog CEO Darin Billerbeck noted that he sat down May 21 with IXYS’s chief, Nathan Zommer, “to discuss your proposal in greater detail, exchange perspectives on value and discuss how the two companies would fit together. I appreciate your taking the time to meet with us and giving us a better insight into your company.”

Perhaps Zommer was the one who got better insight. Zommer, who prior to the meeting personally owned 5,900 shares of Zilog, for which he had paid $15,624.85, sold them two days after the meeting for $24,815.09, netting a $9,190 profit in the process.

And IXYS, which raised its stake in Zilog to 5.3 percent after purchasing an additional 156,056 shares from January to March for $509,963.90, sold 158,200 shares Tuesday and Wednesday for $650,381.13, reducing its stake in Zilog to 4.4 percent, and also making a small profit along the way.