Google is close to purchasing HTC assets, reports Bloomberg

As HTC nears a major announcement about its future on Thursday, Bloomberg today published a report claiming that Google is closing in on a deal to acquire “assets” from the company. HTC is reportedly planning to hold a town hall meeting at its headquarters on Thursday, according to VentureBeat’s Evan Blass. If that’s true, this deal could very well already be done, leaving Google and HTC to finalize everything before making their agreement public tomorrow.

Bloomberg’s report doesn’t get us any closer to knowing exactly what parts of HTC’s business that Google will be buying, nor how much money it’s spending to make this happen. A source told Blass that Google is focused on the company’s hardware engineering assets, which would potentially allow the HTC brand to carry on as part of the Vive/virtual reality business. But it also remains very possible that Google will absorb the entire brand and a good number of HTC employees in a more thorough buyout rather than being selective.

[2] According to this person, the companies have finalized a deal wherein GOOG will acquire certain HW eng assets, but HTC retains its brand

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) September 20, 2017

Neither company has denied that a potential acquisition is in the works in the weeks since this rumor surfaced. Each has only given the standard corporate response of refusing to comment on rumors or speculation.

In a continuation of a partnership that began with last year’s Pixel smartphones, HTC and Google are currently working towards the launch of the Pixel 2, expected to debut on October 4th. But this time, a different company — LG — is manufacturing the larger-sized phone.

HTC announced that it will temporarily halt trading of its shares on the Taiwan stock exchange tomorrow pending the release of “material information,” which means significant news is coming.