Notable Mergers and Acquisitions of the Day 10/7: CIEN, CPWR, MERX

October 7, 2009 10:46 AM EDT

• Ciena(R) Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN) today announced that it has entered into agreements with Nortel to purchase substantially all of the optical networking and carrier Ethernet assets of Nortel's Metro Ethernet Networks business for $390 million in cash and 10 million shares of Ciena common stock. The product and technology assets to be acquired include Nortel's long-haul optical transport portfolio; metro optical Ethernet switching and transport solutions; Ethernet transport, aggregation and switching technology; multiservice SONET/SDH product families; and network management software products.
  
  The proposed transaction would strengthen Ciena's global presence and bring together complementary technologies in switching and transport that will offer customers a practical path for transitioning to automated, optical Ethernet-based networking. Based on the closing price of Ciena's stock on Tuesday, October 6, 2009, the aggregate value of the shares to be issued by Ciena is approximately $131 million, bringing the value of the consideration to approximately $521 million. The assets to be acquired generated approximately $1.36 billion in revenue for Nortel in 2008 and $556 million (unaudited) in the first six months of 2009.
  
  "This is a unique and exciting opportunity for us to accelerate our existing strategy and the pace of our growth plans by two to three years," said Gary Smith, Ciena's CEO and president. "We believe this transaction will position us for faster growth by giving us greater geographic reach, broader customer relationships and a deeper portfolio of solutions. We believe we are best positioned to leverage these assets, thereby creating a significant challenger to traditional network vendors."
  
  He continued: "We have tremendous respect for the talented people at Nortel and for their track record of innovation, and we look forward to the opportunity to build on our existing presence in Canada, where we have operated an R&D center of excellence since 2003. Should the transaction be completed, we will be disciplined in integrating the acquired assets on an aggressive timeframe. We will draw from the best in our respective organizations, cultures and expertise to ensure that we deliver continuity of supply and innovation for our customers and meet shareholder expectations."
  
  
• Compuware Corporation (Nasdaq: CPWR) and Gomez announced the signing of a definitive agreement for Compuware to acquire privately-held Gomez, Inc. Compuware is the world's leading application performance management software company, and Gomez is the leader in Web application experience management. The $295 million cash acquisition is expected to close in November of 2009.
  
  "Together, Compuware and Gomez provide the industry's only unified Application Performance Management solution, spanning the Enterprise and Internet," said Compuware President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Paul. "For business and IT executives who are moving more business-critical applications onto the Internet, Compuware can now offer unified visibility, isolation and resolution of application performance problems from the data center to the customer. Competitive offerings only cover isolated portions of the Enterprise-Internet application delivery chain."
  
  
• Viasystems Group, Inc. and Merix Corporation (NASDAQ: MERX) entered into a definitive agreement to merge their businesses.
  
  Under the terms, each Merix share will be converted into approximately 0.11 newly issued shares of Viasystems, subject to adjustment, which will be publicly traded on the NASDAQ upon completion of the transaction.
  
  Existing Viasystems shareholders will own approximately 80.5 percent of the combined company, existing Merix shareholders will own approximately 12.5 percent and Merix convertible note holders will own approximately 7.0 percent.

To see all the Mergers & Acquisitions for today in real-time go to http://www.streetinsider.com/Mergers+and+Acquisitions

Related Categories

Special Reports

Stocks Mentioned

Related Entities

• Notable Mergers and Acquisitions

Add Your Comment

Name

Subject

Body

Verification can't see the text?
click here to refresh the image.
what's this?