Nokia to Buy Infinera for $2.3 Billion

<p><strong>Espoo&comma; Finland and San Jose –<&sol;strong> Nokia and Infinera&comma; a supplier of innovative  optical networking solutions and advanced optical semiconductors&comma; announced an agreement under which Nokia will acquire Infinera in a transaction valuing the company at &dollar;6&period;65 per share or an enterprise value of US&dollar; 2&period;3 billion&period; The transaction represents a premium of 28&percnt; to Infinera’s share price at the close of 26 June 2024 and a 37&percnt; premium to the trailing 180-day volume weighted average price &lpar;VWAP&rpar;&period; At least 70&percnt; of the consideration will be paid in cash and Infinera’s shareholders can elect to receive up to 30&percnt; of the aggregate consideration in the form of Nokia ADSs&period; Nokia’s Board of Directors has committed to increase and accelerate Nokia’s share buyback program to offset the dilution from the deal&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Nokia and Infinera see a significant opportunity in merging to improve scale and profitability&comma; enabling the combined business to accelerate the development of new products and solutions to benefit customers&period; The transaction aligns strongly with Nokia’s strategy&comma; as it is expected to strengthen the company’s technology leadership in optical and increase exposure to webscale customers&comma; the fastest growing segment of the market&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Nokia believes the transaction has compelling financial and strategic merit&period; The combination with Infinera is projected to accelerate Nokia’s journey to a double-digit operating margin in its Optical Networks business&period; Nokia targets to achieve EUR 200 million of net comparable operating profit synergies by 2027&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Pekka Lundmark&comma; President and CEO of Nokia&comma; said<&sol;strong>&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;In 2021 we increased our organic investment in Optical Networks with a view to improving our competitiveness&period; That decision has paid off and has delivered improved customer recognition&comma; strong sales growth and increased profitability&period; We believe now is the right time to take a compelling inorganic step to further expand Nokia’s scale in optical networks&period; The combined businesses have a strong strategic fit given their highly complementary customer&comma; geographic and technology profiles&period; With the opportunity to deliver over 10&percnt; comparable EPS accretion&comma; we believe this will create significant value for shareholders&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>David Heard&comma; CEO of Infinera&comma; said<&sol;strong>&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are really excited about the value this combination will bring to our global customers&period; We believe Nokia is an excellent partner and together we will have greater scale and deeper resources to set the pace of innovation and address rapidly changing customer needs at a time when optics are more important than ever – across telecom networks&comma; inter-data center applications&comma; and now inside the data center&period; This combination will further leverage our vertically integrated optical semiconductor technologies&period; Furthermore&comma; our stakeholders will have the opportunity to participate in the upside of a global leader in optical networking solutions&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;