Freescale up for sale

SEMI FIRM Freescale, spun out of Motorola, is in talks which could lead to its sale, the New York Times said.

Potential buyers include a consortium so far made up of the Carlyle Group, Bain, Texas Pacific and Permira, the NYT said.

The Carlyle Group is a member of the Valcon PE consortium, which bought VNU earlier this year. VNU owns the INQUIRER.

The deal could be worth over $16 billion and a Freescale rep confirmed talks were under way.

Shares of Freescale soared on the talks by over $5.