Avid has announced plans to acquire Midiman, doing business as M-Audio.

The deal is valued at $80 million (around £44 million) in cash plus two million shares of Avid common stock and the assumption of all outstanding M-Audio stock options, worth approximately another 325,000 shares of Avid stock.

Avid is best known for their development and manufacture of video editing hardware and software, but the company also owns Digidesign, a maker of professional digital audio production systems used in music, broadcast, multimedia and film, and SoftImage, a developer of professional-grade 3D animation, 2D cel animation, compositing and special effects software.

M-Audio manufactures audio hardware and develops audio software for professional and consumer markets in both the Mac and PC space.

Avid indicated that M-Audio will become a business unit of Digidesign, where it will continue to market its line of peripherals, sound cards, keyboard controllers and other products alongside Digidesign's own. Avid president and CEO David Krall said that the acquisition will help his company bolster its investment in the home studio market segment, which he called "the fastest growing portion of our audio business, where we achieved roughly 40 per cent year-over-year growth in Q2 of 2004."

The deal has already been approved by the boards of directors of both companies and has received antitrust clearance; it is expected to close before the end of August.

From Digit