Cisco has announced it has completed its voluntary offer for Tandberg, a global provider of video communications solutions.
The close of this transaction, and the consequent creation of an extensive combined product portfolio, accelerates Cisco’s vision of changing the way people communicate and collaborate by delivering simple, unique and interoperable collaboration experiences.
Under the terms of the tender offer, and following the completion of the compulsory acquisition of shares, Cisco will have purchased all of the outstanding shares of Tandberg for 170 Norwegian kroner per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately 19 billion Norwegian kroner or US$3.3 billion. Cisco expects the acquisition to be dilutive to non-GAAP earnings in fiscal year 2010 and accretive to non-GAAP earnings in fiscal year 2011.
“Today we are celebrating a very important step for our customers in the journey to put people at the centre of collaboration and change the way we work,” said Marthin De Beer, senior VP, Emerging Technologies Business Group, Cisco. “We strongly believe that telepresence – the next generation of videoconferencing – along with Cisco’s entire rich collaboration portfolio, powers this new way of working where everyone, everywhere, can be more productive through the pervasive use of video and face-to-face collaboration.”
The full Tandberg product line is now part of the Cisco TelePresence portfolio. Through this combined offering, the Cisco TelePresence business provides customers with access to a fully integrated architecture, a comprehensive network-based endpoint and infrastructure portfolio — designed to help provide multivendor interoperability — and a suite of unique experiences, customisable applications and flexible deployment models.
With the close of this transaction, Fredrik Halvorsen, the former CEO of Tandberg, becomes senior vice president and leader of the new TelePresence Technology Group within De Beer’s organisation. This newly-formed group includes three fully integrated businesses that will focus on endpoints, infrastructure and Cisco TelePresence cloud services.
Under this leadership, and with unified product lines, employees and vision, Cisco aims to provide consistency and investment protection for customers while speeding innovation that will positively impact the creation of new collaboration experiences.
