Advanced Television

Safe pair of hands wins Moto

December 21, 2012

The STB business of Motorola has gone to Arris as they beat out Pace and others with a winning $2.35 billion bid.

Arris is one of those billion dollar (in fact currently about $1.75 billion market cap) that no one not in its sector has ever heard of. They are so low profile the deal barely made a ripple, never mind a splash, in the financial press.

If you believe the STB/home gateway has a future – and in the US cable industry it certainly does, then it looks like Arris has had the last laugh. Under Bob Stanzione, who arrived from AT&T, the company steadily extended its footprint over the convergence chain with smaller acquisitions like BigBand. This deal transforms the company into a dominant force from headend to home across voice, data and video, with operations across 70 countries. And given the $6.9 billion paid by Cisco for Scientific Atlanta, this looks like a bargain.

Part of the price is being paid with a $300 million share issue to Google which will make the search company a 16 per cent shareholder in Arris. So Arris joins the front rank of in home device companies, boosts it product range across the delivery chain and acquires the most weather changing company in the business as a major shareholder.

 

Categories: Blogs, Broadband, Business, Cable, Equipment, M&A, Nick Snow