Headset maker Plantronics has written a $2 billion cheque for Polycom.
This is the second time in 18 months that Polycom has been sold. It had been under the countrol of private equity firm Siris Capital.
Plantronics claims the acquisition will create “the broadest portfolio” of complementary products and services in the UCC market.
The deal will consist of an estimated $690 million of net debt, roughly $948 million in cash and 6.35 million Plantronics shares. Plantronics claims the deal is likely to close in the third quarter of this year.
Ironically, Plantronics’ offer at $2 billion represents the exact same valuation given by Siris Capital, when the private equity firm saw off a $1.96 billion takeover attempt by UCC vendor Mitel in July 2016.
The deal was not particularly loved by some Mitel partners who thought Polycom’s videoconferencing products were”legacy technology”.
Plantronics claims the acquisition will enable the firm to “capture additional opportunities” in a UCC market worth $39.9 billion, in addition to giving channel partners an expanded services offering with a “meaningful presence” in management and analytics services.
Plantronics CEO Joe Burton said: “With the addition of Polycom’s solutions across video, audio and collaboration, we will be able to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of communications and collaboration touch points and services to our customers and channel partners. This will put Plantronics in an ideal position to solve for today’s enterprise collaboration requirements while capitalising on market opportunities associated with the evolving, intelligent enterprise.”
Polycom generated revenues of $1.14 billion in 2017 and an operating profit of $94.8 million. Plantronics claims the deal will help it achieve annual run-rate cost synergies of $75 million within 12 months of the transaction’s close.
Polycom CEO Mary McDowell said that Polycom has returned to growth by focusing on building strong ecosystem partnerships and delivering innovative, smart solutions for our customers and partners.
“Bringing Plantronics and Polycom together will broaden the breadth of solutions available to customers and partners and create a consistent end-user experience across many collaboration applications and devices. As one company, Plantronics and Polycom will make it even easier for all customers to solve big-business problems through human-to-human connection,” she said.
There has been a lot going on in the UCC space. Mitel acquired rival ShoreTel last year, Avaya entering Chapter 11 last January before re-emerging as a public company a year later, and Extreme Networks snapping up business units from Avaya and Brocade.
