Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) won restraining order Friday in Delaware Chancery Court that at least temporarily precludes Acacia Communications (NASDAQ: ACIA) from terminating the agreement that would see the two companies merge. Acacia earlier in the day announced it was pulling out of the transaction because the deal had failed to receive approval from Chinese authorities by the January 8 deadline; Cisco said it had received the necessary approval the day before (see “Acacia Communications says Cisco merger is off; Cisco disagrees”).
According to Bloomberg, Cisco alleged in court on Friday that Acacia was attempting to kill the deal because the optical transceiver and coherent DSP vendor believed its valuation had grown beyond what Cisco had offered. Cisco offered $70.00 per share in cash when the agreement was signed in July 2019 (see “Cisco to buy Acacia Communications for optical transceiver, components play”). Needham & Co. estimated in the wake of Friday’s news that Acacia’s shares could be worth $95.00 to $110.00, based on the value of its peers.
Acacia management is scheduled to conduct a call at 5 PM Eastern this afternoon to discuss “recent developments” as well as preliminary unaudited financial results for its fourth fiscal quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2020.
Cisco also has asked the court to rule on whether it has fulfilled all of requirements for the acquisition to proceed. The court granted a Cisco request to expedite the proceedings on this question.
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