Buying time

摘要

It will be less a love match than a marriage of convenience if the knot is eventually tied between Freescale Semiconductor, a chipmaking firm that used to be part of Motorola, and a consortium of private-equity firms led by the Blackstone Group. That, at least, is the obvious conclusion to draw from Freescale's insistence, as a condition of accepting the Blackstone club's $17.6 billion proposal, that it retain the right not only to say yes to any better offer that comes along within 50 days-but actively to solicit such a bid.