ADVA Optical Networking and MRV Communications Inc. entered into an agreement by which ADVA will acquire MRV for US $69 million, or $10 per share. The deal has been approved and unanimously recommended by both companies’ boards of directors, ADVA added.
“If successful, the acquisition will further strengthen ADVA Optical networking’s portfolio of optical, Ethernet and software solutions and expand its customer base, especially in non-European regions," ADVA Optical added. The company further stated that in 2016 MRV had revenues of $80.3 million; for the quarter ending March 31, 2017, MRV’s revenues were $21.2 million.
Brian Protiva, chief executive officer of ADVA Optical Networking, stated, “MRV Communications Inc. is a company that shares many of our values. It’s a company that has built a strong reputation focused on customer success and satisfaction. Over 29 years, it has driven some key innovations and played an important role in shaping our industry. That’s why we signed a definitive agreement to acquire it. We believe there’s a strong synergy between our two companies. MRV Communications’ technology and talent will strengthen our own product set and help us deliver even more value to our customers. Our combined teams present the marketplace with an incredibly compelling skill set and technology base.”
Mark Bonney, MRV Communications’ chief executive officer, said, “The network equipment markets that we serve continue to be highly competitive. In this environment, we concluded that the best course of action for MRV’s shareholders was to undertake a review of strategic alternatives. At the conclusion of this review, we have determined that the agreement we have reached to be acquired by ADVA Optical Networking provides the best alternative for MRV and its shareholders. We see a very natural fit between ADVA Optical Networking and MRV as both companies have been long-standing suppliers to carrier Ethernet and optical transport markets. With so much in common technically and culturally, but with relatively little overlap among customers, the combined company will be in a stronger position to support the evolving needs of its target markets.”
Among MRV’s technological offerings is the Media Cross Connect line of physical layer switches. MRV describes the switches (pictured on this page) as “scalable, OSI Layer 1 switches that allow users to connect any port to any other port within the system using a non-blocking matrix. The Media Cross Connect is an optical-to-electrical-to-optical switch used for data rates and media up to 100 Gbits/sec. Deploying these switches in a lab environment allows test commitments to be met without compromising quality or responsiveness, or increasing capital or operational expenses,” the company says. It further explains: “Physical layer switches differ from traditional LAN switches in that they provide a fully non-blocking architecture eliminating the concerns of oversubscribing bandwidth simplifying connectivity options in lab environments. Physical layer switches also feature extremely low latency and are virtually invisible to end-system devices greatly improving the accuracy of test scenarios in high-performance network testing.”
You can find more information on MRV’s Media Cross Connect product line here.