Infinera makes a $430M move to buy competitor Coriant

In a bid to shake up its bottom line, Infinera announced a cash and stock deal valued at $430 million to acquire optical competitor Coriant. Infinera said the deal, which is set to close this quarter, would double its annual revenue and expand its customer base to serve nine of the top 10 global network operators, with five new to Infinera, and the top six internet content providers, including three that would be new to Infinera. "It's a pretty straightforward deal," said Lee Doyle, principal analyst at Doyle Research. "Infinera is doubling its size and leveraging the economics of scale in the consolidating optical industry. Large communications service providers (CSPs) prefer to work closely with a couple optical suppliers and Infinera, via Coriant, is acquiring several large new, potential customers. Infinera said the addition of Coriant, which is privately held, and debt free, would better position it to capitalize on the next wave of global spending as network operators transition from 4G to 5G and from optical transport networks (OTN) to packet networks, and from closed networks to open networks.