Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Acacia Communications (NASDAQ: ACIA) today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Cisco has agreed to acquire Acacia. An existing Cisco supplier, Acacia designs and manufactures high-speed, optical interconnect technologies that allow webscale companies, service providers, and data center operators to meet the fast-growing consumer demands for data.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco has agreed to acquire Acacia for $70.00 per share in cash, or for approximately $2.6 billion on a fully diluted basis, net of cash and marketable securities. As Cisco and Acacia come together, Cisco plans to support Acacia's existing customers and new customers that want industry-leading coherent optics, digital signal processing / photonic integrated circuit modules, and transceivers for use in networking products and data centers.
"By innovating across software, silicon and optics, Cisco is reinventing every domain of the network with our intent-based architectures," said David Goeckeler, executive vice president and general manager of Cisco's networking and security business. "With the explosion of bandwidth in the multi-cloud era, optical interconnect technologies are becoming increasingly strategic. The acquisition of Acacia will allow us to build on the strength of our switching, routing and optical networking portfolio to address our customers' most demanding requirements."
Cisco offers a full portfolio of optical systems to support webscale, service provider, enterprise, and public sector customer segments. These optical systems address performance, power, and cost requirements. Acacia's technology will enrich Cisco's optical systems portfolio. It will also allow the growing number of customers transitioning from chassis-based systems to pluggable technology to simplify operations and reduce network complexities.
"Coherent technology has been a game-changer for optical networking and continues to evolve with the deployment of pluggable coherent optics," said Raj Shanmugaraj, president and chief executive officer, Acacia. "Upon close, Cisco and Acacia will continue to serve and support existing Acacia customers. By integrating Acacia technology into Cisco's networking portfolio, we believe we can accelerate the trend toward coherent technology and pluggable solutions while accommodating a larger footprint of customers worldwide."
The acquisition is expected to close during the second half of Cisco's FY2020, subject to customary closing conditions and required regulatory approvals. Upon completion of this transaction, Acacia employees will join Cisco's Optical Systems and Optics business within the networking and security business under David Goeckeler.
For additional information about Cisco's intent to acquire Acacia, please read the blog from the head of Cisco's Optical Systems and Optics business, Bill Gartner.
About Cisco
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About Acacia Communications
Acacia Communications develops, manufactures and sells high-speed coherent optical interconnect products that are designed to transform communications networks through improvements in performance, capacity and cost. By implementing optical interconnect technology in a silicon-based platform, a process Acacia Communications refers to as the "siliconization of optical interconnect," Acacia Communications is able to offer products at higher speeds and density with lower power consumption, that meet the needs of cloud and service providers and can be easily integrated in a cost-effective manner with existing network equipment. For more information about Acacia, visit www.acacia-inc.com or follow on Twitter at @AcaciaComms.
