Acer’s Lanci rules out imminent acquisition

Acer is looking at acquisitions to expand its product line and geographic reach. But Gianfranco Lanci, the company’s president, ruled out the possibility that Acer plans to make an acquisition announcement soon.

“This is just a change in terms of perspective,” Lanci told reporters at the annual CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Germany.

Until recently, Acer was committed to expanding its PC business through growth alone. “We started to realize that to grow organically may be okay, but we are today in the position that the possibility of an acquisition is not rejected 100 percent as it was in the past,” Lanci said, noting this change in thinking occurred over the last six to 12 months.

That change became apparent earlier this week when The Wall Street Journal newspaper quoted Acer Chairman J.T. Wang, saying the company planned to make a meaningful acquisition this year and is looking at potential candidates.

“This does not mean that we are going to do an acquisition in the next few weeks,” Lanci said.

Lanci has some experience with acquisitions: He came to Acer in 1997 with the acquisition of Texas Instrument’s notebook PC division. That acquisition laid the foundation for Acer’s successful notebook PC business today.

Any future acquisition by Acer would have to help the company meet its aim of overtaking rival Lenovo Group to become the world’s third-largest PC vendors this year. Lanci said the company is well on its way to meeting this goal, and believes Acer may have taken the No. 3 spot during the first quarter, which ends later this month.

Acer is approaching possible acquisitions carefully, well aware that these deals often turn sour.

“We are extremely careful. If we are going to do anything, for sure we are going to something in an area where we relatively weak in terms of product, for example,” Lanci said.

“We are not going to acquire a notebook company because we are big enough in terms of notebooks,” he said.