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Here are highlights from Friday's Analyst Blog:

RACK to Acquire SGIC

RACK to Acquire SGIC (RACK $3.99, Zacks recommendation: Hold, target price $4.50) has announced that it will acquire Silicon Graphics (SGIC) for about $25 million, plus the assumption of certain liabilities (amount not disclosed).

RACK will also suspend (but not eliminate) its current stock buy-back.

SGIC was a well known maker of advanced graphics workstations and associated software. Although the technology used in the current server market is advanced versions of the standard Intel (x86) architecture, SGIC has intellectual property that spans several areas of computing and storage as well as a worldwide service organization. This may be of value to RACK as it competes with other server companies such as IBM, HP and Sun.

ASML Rides the Immersion Wave

Market research firm VLSI Research recently compiled its list of the top semiconductor equipment suppliers. Applied Materials (AMAT) once again held the top spot. Maybe more interesting though was the leap ASML Holding N.V. (ASML) had as it overtook Tokyo Electron (TEL) for the second spot. The main reason was lithography.

Immersion lithography permits the ion beam to be more precisely controlled during the formation process, resulting in smaller design geometries or line resolutions. This is accomplished by using water rather than "dry" air between the wafer and hyper-NA (numerical aperture) lenses, thus improving the depth of focus and the extension of wavelengths to lower nodes. Because of the lenses, the same light sources used in 193nm lithography systems can be used down to the 45nm node.

KIM Sells Stock

Kimco Realty (KIM) announced yesterday plans to sell 91.5 million shares of common stock at $7.10 per share. In addition, the company has granted its underwriters an option to purchase 13.7 million shares. The company will net about $623.6 million from the sale, which will be used to pay down debt.

Shares moved up on the news as investors like to see companies addressing debt. Although, shares are off nearly 80% over the past year, and the company is selling shares at fire sale prices. This is dilutive to current shareholders, and KIM will be flooding the market with new shares well below the company's net asset value.

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RACK will also suspend (but not eliminate) its current stock buy-back.

SGIC was a well known maker of advanced graphics workstations and associated software. Although the technology used in the current server market is advanced versions of the standard Intel (x86) architecture, SGIC has intellectual property that spans several areas of computing and storage as well as a worldwide service organization. This may be of value to RACK as it competes with other server companies such as IBM, HP and Sun.