€25.9 million deal unites telecom industry
leaders in fiber optic testing and mobile network performance,
creating a new global force in network test, monitoring and
analytics
BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - EXFO Inc.
(NASDAQ: EXFO) (TSX: EXF), the network test, monitoring and
analytics experts, announced the company has acquired 97.44% of the
share capital and at least 95.07% of the voting rights of Astellia
(EURONEXT: ALAST), a global leader in the performance analysis of
mobile networks and subscriber experience, following the closing of
the second phase of a public tender offer. The announcement was
made at Mobile World Congress, the world's largest gathering for
the mobile industry.
With headquarters in Rennes, France, Astellia reported sales of €38.6
million in 2017, and has over 400 employees and more than 120
customers worldwide. The company's solutions and services help
mobile network operators improve service quality, maximize
operational efficiency, reduce subscriber churn and develop
revenues in core network, RAN, LTE and SDN/NFV deployments.
"This is great news for Astellia's and EXFO's respective
customers. By joining our strengths and technologies, we are
creating unique capabilities to help operators keep pace with a
quickly changing industry and ever-increasing consumer
expectations," said Germain Lamonde,
EXFO's founder and Executive Chairman. "With our combined scale,
global market coverage, technologies, strong professional services
and deep mobile expertise, EXFO and Astellia are well positioned
for the next cycle of investments by mobile network operators. Our
customers are transforming their networks to keep up with
insatiable consumer demand for more bandwidth and better, faster
mobile service."
"Together, EXFO and Astellia are in a stronger position to help
operators make the most of their 3G and 4G investments as well as
deploy 5G, RAN and C-RAN infrastructures," said Abdelkrim Benamar, Astellia's CEO. "We deliver
the automation, troubleshooting, network intelligence and insights
into customer experience that are critical to our customers'
business performance."
Given that minority shareholders do not represent more than 5%
of the share capital or the voting rights
of Astellia, EXFO intends to implement a mandatory
squeeze-out of the remaining shares and de-list Astellia from the
Euronext Paris Exchange. The entirety of Astellia's equity is
valued at approximately €25.9 million on a fully diluted basis.
About EXFO
EXFO develops smarter network test,
monitoring and analytics solutions for the world's leading
communications service providers, network equipment manufacturers
and webscale companies. Since 1985, we've worked side by side with
our customers in the lab, field, data center, boardroom and beyond
to pioneer essential technology and methods for each phase of the
network lifecycle. Our portfolio of test orchestration and
real-time 3D analytics solutions turn complex into simple and
deliver business-critical insights from the network, service and
subscriber dimensions. Most importantly, we help our customers
flourish in a rapidly transforming industry where "good enough"
testing, monitoring and analytics just aren't good enough
anymore—they never were for us, anyway. For more information, visit
EXFO.com and follow us on the EXFO Blog.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains
forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and we intend that such
forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbors created
thereby. Forward-looking statements are statements other than
historical information or statements of current condition. Words
such as may, expect, believe, plan, anticipate, intend, could,
estimate, continue or similar expressions or the negative of such
expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In
addition, any statement that refers to expectations, projections or
other characterizations of future events and circumstances are
considered forward-looking statements. They are not guarantees of
future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual
results may differ materially from those in forward-looking
statements due to various factors including, but not limited to,
macroeconomic uncertainty as well as capital spending and network
deployment levels in the telecommunications industry (including our
ability to quickly adapt cost structures with anticipated levels of
business and our ability to manage inventory levels with market
demand); future economic, competitive, financial and market
conditions; consolidation in the global telecommunications test and
service assurance industry and increased competition among vendors;
capacity to adapt our future product offering to future
technological changes; limited visibility with regard to timing and
nature of customer orders; longer sales cycles for complex systems
involving customers' acceptances delaying revenue recognition;
fluctuating exchange rates; concentration of sales; timely release
and market acceptance of our new products and other upcoming
products; our ability to successfully expand international
operations; our ability to successfully integrate businesses that
we acquire; and the retention of key technical and management
personnel. Assumptions relating to the foregoing involve judgments
and risks, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict and
many of which are beyond our control. Other risk factors that may
affect our future performance and operations are detailed in our
Annual Report, on Form 20-F, and our other filings with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian securities
commissions. We believe that the expectations reflected in the
forward-looking statements are reasonable based on information
currently available to us, but we cannot assure that the
expectations will prove to have been correct. Accordingly, you
should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking
statements. These statements speak only as of the date of this
document. Unless required by law or applicable regulations, we
undertake no obligation to revise or update any of them to reflect
events or circumstances that occur after the date of this
document.
EXFO-F
SOURCE EXFO Inc.