Cisco revises offer to acquire Acacia for $4.5 bn

Enterprise networking giant Cisco has agreed to revise its offer to acquire Acacia for approximately $4.5 billion as against the previous deal size of $2.6 billion.
Cisco at MWC 2018Acacia is a component supplier and maker of high-speed optical interconnect technology for networking systems.

Cisco initially offered to acquire Acacia for $70 a share, or $2.6 billion in July 2019. Cisco earlier said the acquisition will benefit its existing enterprise network portfolio.

“I am delighted that Cisco and Acacia have decided to come together in this mutual deal,” said Chuck Robbins, chairman and CEO, Cisco.

“We look forward to welcoming Raj and the Acacia team to Cisco to offer our customers world-class coherent optical solutions to power the Internet for the future,” Chuck Robbins said in a statement on Thursday.

CEO Raj Shanmugaraj and Acacia employees will join Cisco’s optics business.

Cisco and Acacia expect to complete the acquisition by the end of the first calendar quarter of 2021.

Last week, Acacia announced to terminate its merger agreement with Cisco after the company had failed to meet a set of closing conditions such as “obtaining necessary regulatory approvals within the timeframe contemplated by the merger agreement.”

Cisco said it is committed to supporting Acacia’s existing and new customers around the world that require industry-leading coherent optics, digital signal processing/photonic integrated circuit modules and transceivers for use in networking products and data centres.

“We maintain our conviction in the strategic benefits of joining the Cisco family and believe it will enable us to better support our existing customers, while reaching an expanded footprint of new customers globally,” said Raj Shanmugaraj, president and CEO of Acacia.