October 20, 2009On October 8, I reported on a conversation I had with John Marson, vice president of industry and strategic marketing at Ciena, regarding what his company wouldn't be buying as part of its proposed deal to acquire Nortel's optical and metro Ethernet assets. If you read the article, you'll recall that Marson wasn't entirely sure what Nortel products were on his company's shopping list.
I recently received an email from Marty Querzoli of the Davies Murphy Group, which does PR for Ciena. Marty provided clarification of some of Marson's comments. According to Marty, Ciena indeed doesn't hope to acquire the Ethernet Access Service Terminal, the WDM-PON platform that's part of the LG-Nortel joint venture. The company does want Nortel's Optical Multiservice Edge 1000 family, as well as the HDX crossconnect family.
Of course, wanting the products and actually acquiring them will be more complicated than your average M&A activity, thanks to Nortel's bankruptcy. Ciena's $521 million offering merely serves as the opening bid for an auction of the assets, which is scheduled to begin November 13 at 9:30 AM ET. The deadline for initial submission of qualified bids is November 9 at 4:00 PM ET. The US and Canadian court hearing to approve the successful bid is slated to follow November 19 at 1:00 PM ET.
