Genband Takes Swing at Nortel’s Carrier VoIP

In this week’s installment of As Nortel Liquidates, the company has now found a bidder for its carrier VoIP business.  Genband will take its turn in the hot seat as stalking horse with a $282M bid.  It probably won’t go for that little of course, but at least the process is still moving steadily onward. 

Now everyone knew that this was coming, they’ve been talking about it since summer.  And everyone knew that it was going to happen very soon.  But nobody knew who would be the likeliest bidder really would be.  Basically, depending on who you read, reports had it likely that  any of Genband, NEC, Nokia Siemens, Sonus, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, or Huawei might be the one.

So unlike the Ciena/Nokia struggle for the MEN division, this auction is not a two horse race and actually could be very unpredictable.  As stalking horse, Genband has a slight edge.  But I have a feeling we should be watching Sonus here also, on the same principle as Ciena – they probably have the most to gain strategically.  Analysts suggest that they might shy away from a bid because their stock price would come under pressure, however that’s not really a good way to choose long term strategy now is it?

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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Telecom Equipment