SiliconBeat

California Micro Devices, the recipient of a New Years Eve letter from a Dialectic Capital that urged the chip maker to pay a large chunk of its cash out to shareholders in a special dividend, sent the New York investor a reply Monday that nixed that idea, along with the notion that the company should put itself up for sale.

In his letter to Dialectic’s manager, John Fichthorn, Cal Micro Chairman Wade Meyercord said on behalf of his board that “(w)e appreciate” Dialectic’s “interest and support” as a stockholder, noting that the private equity firm had been a 5 percent owner since September 2007 (i.e, not that long a time).

“The strategic issues we have been considering include those raised in your letter,” wrote Meyercord, “but we have come to different conclusions.” Read the rest of this entry »

Things are not shaping up for a Happy New Year at California Micro Devices, the Milipitas chip maker whose second largest shareholder sent it a letter New Years Eve calling for the company to pay out more than half the cash in its coffers to its shareholders in a special dividend and to “immediately engage an investment bank and begin a sale process” of itself.

In his letter to Cal Micro’s board Wednesday, Dialectic Capital Management’s John Fichthorn wrote of how the investor’s “frustration with management’s inability to perform culminated” on Dec. 10 when Cal Micro announced Read the rest of this entry »