Mergers and Acquisitions

GTT Communications has confirmed that its acquisition of Interoute – the operator of one of Europe’s largest independent fibre networks – is now complete.

Ciena Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held network performance management software provider, Packet Design.

Ciena says that the acquisition would help to accelerate its Blue Planet suite of products by allowing the extension of its intelligent automation capabilities beyond Layers 0-2 and into IP. The system itself was attained via the company’s 2015 acquisition of Cyan (see Ciena buys Cyan for its software smarts).

UPC Switzerland has acquired a cable network that serves some 15,000 homes in the Höfe region of Germany, from EW Höfe.

EW Höfe said that it decided to sell its existing cable network to long-standing partner and Liberty Global-owned company, UPC Switzerland, in order to focus on the expansion of its new fibre optic network. This is set for completion in 2019.

TalkTalk intends to sell its direct B2B business to The Daisy Group for £175 million. The two companies have each signed heads of terms on a proposed deal which would transfer all existing TalkTalk direct B2B customers to Daisy.

The deal includes around 80,000 small, small to medium and large businesses, and TalkTalk says that this represents less than 20 per cent of the company’s B2B revenues. The transaction is subject to contract, with the intention to complete in late July 2018.

UK-based alternative fibre network provider, CityFibre has agreed the terms of a recommended cash acquisition by Bidco.

Newly incorporated company, Bidco – which is indirectly owned by a consortium including private equity house Antin and Goldman Sachs’ West Street Infrastructure Partners – is paying 81p per share for CityFibre in a deal worth £537.8 million.

GTT Communications has continued on the acquisition trail with the purchase of Accelerated Connections (ACI), a Toronto-headquartered provider of managed networking, voice over IP (VoIP) and colocation services, serving large distributed Canadian enterprises.

Lumentum Holdings and Oclaro have reached an agreement, on which the former will acquire all of the outstanding common stock of the latter. 
 
For each share of Oclaro stock held, The holder will be entitled to receive $5.60 in cash and 0.0636 of a share of Lumentum common stock, subject to the terms. The transaction values Oclaro at $9.99per share or approximately $1.8 billion in equity value, based on the closing price of Lumentum's stock on 9 March 2018. 
 

GTT Communications has entered into a definitive purchase agreement to acquire the UK-based operator of one of Europe’s largest independent fibre networks and cloud networking platforms, Interoute, in a deal worth approximately €1.9 billion ($2.3 billion).

The world’s largest cable systems company will become even larger when Prysmian Group completes its planned acquisition of General Cable, announced this week.

Prysmian Group has signed a definitive agreement to acquire General Cable for $30 per share in cash, in a deal that values General Cable at $3 billion, including debt and certain liabilities. The transaction, which has already been approved by the boards of both parties, is expected to close by the third quarter of 2018.