Genband and Sonus are merging in a deal valued at roughly $745 million. The transaction is structured as a “merger of equals” and will give shareholders of each company approximately 50% of the combined enterprise. Sonus, a public company, saw its stock price rise less than 2% on the news. Genband is a private company.
Sonus makes service provider network equipment and software to enable voice-over-LTE and Wi-Fi calling, and Genband makes IP gateways and switches. Sonus and Genband both offer real-time communications solutions for enterprise customers, and they both sell session border controllers and diameter signaling controllers to the service provider market. The combined company should be a tougher competitor for industry giant Oracle, which got into the diameter signalling business when it bought Tekelec. Other players in this market include F5 Networks, NetNumber, Mavenir, Squire Technologies and Dialogic.
“The transaction is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year and until then, Genband and Sonus will continue to operate as independent companies,” said Genband CEO and chairman David Walsh. “It is business as usual at Genband.”
“Together, Sonus and Genband create a market leader in real-time communications with enhanced capabilities to support our customers’ move to cloud-based solutions,” said Raymond Dolan, president and CEO of Sonus. “This is a strategically and financially compelling transaction for Sonus and we are confident that together with Genband we will achieve our growth initiatives faster and more fully than either company could do on its own.”
Dolan will be the CEO of the combined company. Walsh will assist with the integration of the businesses, and will oversee Genband’s Kandy business, which will become a division of the combined company. Kandy is Genband’s cloud communications platform as a service for service providers and enterprises.
The two companies said their combined 2016 revenue would have been roughly $680 million, and earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes would have been approximately $50 million. They expect the merger to deliver $40 million to $50 million in cost savings by the end of 2018, but did not comment on whether the combination of their businesses would require layoffs.
