Cisco on Thursday agreed to acquire Acacia for $115 per share in cash, or approximately $4.5 billion. Cisco initially offered to acquire Acacia for $70 a share, or $2.6 billion in July 2019.
Speaking about the merger Chuck Robbins, chairman and CEO, Cisco said, “I am delighted that Cisco and Acacia have decided to come together in this mutual deal.”
“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,” he added.
The two companies expect to complete the acquisition by the end of the first calendar quarter of 2021.
Upon completion of the acquisition, CEO Raj Shanmugaraj and Acacia employees will join Cisco’s optics business.
This development comes a week after Acacia announced to terminate its merger agreement with Cisco.
The decision was taken after Cisco 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 strong 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.
Cisco said the acquisition will benefit its existing enterprise network portfolio.
Acacia is a component supplier and maker of high-speed optical interconnect technology for networking systems.