Moving ahead with a plan to shrink its heavy debt load, CommScope has inked a deal to sell its outdoor wireless networks (OWN) unit and its distributed antenna systems (DAS) business to Amphenol Corp. for $2.1 billion.
CommScope’s DAS business sits inside its Networking, Intelligent Cellular and Security Solutions (NICS) unit, which also makes and sells Wi-Fi gear from Ruckus and small cell and private wireless platforms for licensed and unlicensed spectrum. CommScope’s OWN unit focuses the planning and building of macro and small cell networks and certain supporting components and equipment (“everything but the radio,” as CommScope has put it).
The companies expect the all-cash deal to close within the first half of 2025.
Amphenol said the deal will complement its existing lineup of next-gen wireless products, and that it expects the transaction to be accretive to its diluted earnings per share in the first full year after closing. Amphenol President and CEO R. Adam Norwitt noted in a press release that about 4,000 CommScope employees will be joining his company as a result of the deal.
The businesses Amphenol is picking up have been struggling of late. CommScope’s OWN unit posted Q1 2024 sales of $196 million, down 24% year-over-year, as product demand remained low while operators plowed through existing inventories. CommScope does not break out DAS sales, but its NICS unit saw Q1 sales drop 37% to $180 million.
Focus on cutting down debt
The deal comes together amid a broader evaluation of CommScope’s business (internally called “NEXT”) that includes potential divestitures to help cut down the company’s $9.3 billion debt load. This latest sale also comes about seven months after CommScope sold Home Networks, the unit that makes cable modems, set-tops and other types of customer premises equipment (CPE), to Vantiva. In exchange, CommScope has retained a 25% stake in Vantiva.
“This transaction allows CommScope to increase focus and further strengthen its CommScope NEXT priorities with its remaining segments and business units,” Chuck Treadway, CommScope’s CEO, said in a statement about today’s agreement with Amphenol.
It is not immediately clear if CommScope intends to divest additional assets. The company has been asked to clarify whether it’s still exploring more deals.
Back in the fall of 2023, industry sources confirmed a report that the company was also exploring a sale of other assets, including Ruckus Wireless and access network solutions (ANS), the unit that makes and sells cable access network equipment and software along with amplifiers and other types of outdoor plant equipment.
However, CommScope recently acquired the cable assets of Casa Systems following a winning bid of $45.1 million, an indicator that the company sees some longer-term potential for ANS.
Speaking on the company’s Q4 2023 earnings call in February, CommScope EVP and CFO Kyle Lorentzen stressed that the company does “not intend to sell assets on the cheap” as it evaluates opportunities.
Once OWN and the DAS business leave the fold, CommScope’s remaining business will be comprised of Connectivity and Cable Solutions (cable headend and PON technologies and data center connectivity for cloud/hyperscalers), the rest of NICS (including Ruckus) and ANS (DOCSIS cable modem termination systems, virtual CMTSs, remote PHY and remote MAC PHY devices for distributed access architectures, and other types of cable access networking equipment and software).
