Five private equity firms bought most of Philips' chip business in 2006, two years before the financial crisis. KKR, Bain Capital, Silver Lake, Apax and AlpInvest renamed it NXP. The buyout left the Dutch chipmaker with heavy debt, and the crisis cut deep into chip sales. In August 2010 NXP came to Nasdaq and priced its shares at $14. It was a modest start for a company that later drew a takeover bid worth $44 billion.

A Spinout From Eindhoven

Philips had made semiconductors for decades from its home in Eindhoven. In September 2006 it sold an 80.1 percent stake in the division to the buyout group. The new company kept the Philips engineers and customers and took a new name. NXP's bet was to focus on chips that connect and control things, such as car electronics, identification cards, and the near-field radios that let a phone or card talk to a reader.

The Deal That Died

NXP sold 34 million shares at $14 each on Nasdaq in August 2010. The stock rose as car and payment chips took off. In December 2015 it completed a merger with Freescale, the former Motorola chip unit. In October 2016 Qualcomm agreed to buy NXP for about $44 billion. The deal waited for approval from Chinese regulators that never came, and Qualcomm walked away in July 2018. NXP still trades on Nasdaq as NXPI.

Cover: Canal with a Large Boat and a Bridge, Rembrandt van Rijn. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a Dutch canal boat (a Netherlands company setting off).