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iRobot Is Being Acquired by Amazon for $1.7 Billion. iRobot Stock Soars.iRobot Is Being Acquired by Amazon for $1.7 Billion. iRobot Stock Soars. Barron's (Online); New York Amazon.com is on a mini-acquisition spree. The tech giant said Friday it was buying smart vacuum cleaner company, iRobot, marking its second deal in about the last two weeks. iRobot (ticker: IRBT) is being acquired in an all-cash transaction for roughly $1.7 billion, including debt. The deal works out at $61 a share and is about a 22% premium to iRobot's closing price on Thursday. iRobot is the maker of the Roomba robot vacuum, first introduced in 2002. Amazon's virtual assistant technology, Alexa, already supports iRobot devices, meaning Roomba users can clean their rooms with voice commands. iRobot stock surged on the news; it jumped almost 20% to $59.59 Friday morning after trading was halted earlier. Amazon.com (AMZN) was down 0.8%. The move in opposite directions shouldn't be surprising for investors because of the premium Amazon is paying for the transaction. Amazon's iRobot purchase comes right after it bought medical-care company One Medical, for approximately $3.9 billion, including debt, last month. Amazon would now need to focus on turning things around for iRobot, which is facing strong headwinds. iRobot on Friday said "unanticipated order reductions, delays and cancellations from retailers" affected its results. The company reported second-quarter revenue of $255 million, lower than the consensus call of $304 million. The company also said its restricting operations and cutting 140 jobs, or roughly 10% of the company's workforce. |
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