There were further reports concerning Fitbit’s potential acquisition of smartwatch player Pebble, with Bloomberg reporting that around 40 per cent of Pebble staff have now received job offers from Fitbit.

Unsurprisingly, the offers centre on Pebble’s software engineering teams. Bloomberg said “very few Pebble interface designers were offered jobs and hardware teams were not offered positions”. Two planned devices, Time 2 and Pebble Core, will be cancelled, with Kickstarter backers for the products refunded.

The mooted purchase price of “less than $40 million” will not cover Pebble’s debt, the report said, although more cash will be raised through the sale of product inventory and equipment. Pebble shares held by staff will be “worthless”, as funds are used to pay-off debt holders, vendors, and the main equity investors.

With the wearables market seeing tough times, Pebble has been impacted by a smartwatch sector that is best described as lacklustre. While Fitbit has maintained its leadership of the fitness tracker market, the acquisition of Pebble’s assets will enable it to expand its product line further into higher-value segments.

An announcement is “imminent”, Bloomberg said.