Syquest jilted at altar by Nomai

Storage vendor Syquest has got egg on its face after French removable drive firm Nomai SA pulled out of a proposed takeover bid at the last minute.

Nomai rejected the takeover terms last week, after a period of financial, technical and corporate due diligence, just two weeks after the companies had announced plans to merge.

Syquest is now understood to be taking legal action against Nomai for reneging on the deal and trying to alter the terms of the agreement.

Marc Frouin, CEO of Nomai, said: 'It was impossible to come to an agreement with Syquest because of its depressed stock price and the current state of its business.'

Nomai's refusal did not come as a surprise to one channel source. 'Syquest's in a mess. Their shares aren't worth anything so who'd want to be taken over by them?' he said.

Syquest had offered 3.4 million of its shares for 674,735 of Nomai's shares.

Syquest reported a net loss of $41.3 million on turnover of $29.5 million for its Q3, ended 30 June, compared with a net profit of $1.7 million on turnover of $69 million last Q3.