Amphenol deepens data center presence with $10.5 billion deal for CommScope’s CCS business
For more on Amphenol and CommScope:
- Uncertainty continues to impact CommScope’s core business
- Amphenol wraps acquisition of CommScope’s DAS and outdoor wireless business lines
- Amphenol Corporation to acquire CommScope’s mobile networks business
Also, keep up to date with Lightwave’s earnings coverage:
And
Amphenol has reached a deal to acquire CommScope’s Connectivity and Cable Solutions (CCS) business for $10.5 billion in cash, sharpening its focus on burgeoning data center opportunities driven by AI.
By making this deal, Amphenol will add fiber interconnect products for artificial intelligence and other data center applications. Also, it further diversifies Amphenol’s broad portfolio of fiber and other interconnect product solutions in the communications networks and industrial markets.
CCS operates three business lines:
· Data Center Connectivity Solutions: This segment provides interconnect solutions to customers in the IT datacom market.
· Broadband Communications: Provides fiber and other interconnect solutions to customers in the communications networks market.
· Building Connectivity Solutions: Sells a broad array of interconnect solutions integrated into existing and next-generation building technology in the industrial market.
Assuming the current economic conditions continue, Amphenol said it expects the CCS business to have sales and EBITDA margins of approximately $3.6 billion and 26% in calendar 2025, respectively. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Amphenol’s Diluted Earnings Per Share in the first full year after closing, excluding acquisition-related costs.
Adam Norwitt, president and CEO of Amphenol, said the CCS business will give it a greater foothold in the data center market while enhancing its industrial connectivity product lines.
“CCS’s broad portfolio of fiber optic interconnect solutions for the rapidly growing IT datacom market, including for artificial intelligence applications, is highly complementary to Amphenol’s already strong product offerings in this market,” he said. “In addition, the acquisition adds new fiber optic interconnect competencies to our offerings for the communications networks market, while also expanding our capabilities in the industrial market through CCS’s building infrastructure connectivity solutions.”
Amphenol said it will finance the acquisition through a combination of cash on hand and debt, and has obtained committed financing from J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, BNP Paribas and Mizuho Bank, Ltd. to fund the transaction.
After it clears customary regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions, Amphenol expects the CCS deal to close in the first half of 2026.
The CCS deal is just one of two new deals Amphenol has made to enhance its portfolio.
Earlier this year, Amphenol completed its purchase of CommScope’s Outdoor Wireless Networks (OWN) and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) businesses, giving it more capabilities to serve new targeted wireless deployments. This acquisition's completion also marks the return of the Andrew Corp. name, which became part of CommScope when it purchased the company for $2.65 billion in 2007.
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About the Author
Sean BuckleySean Buckley
Sean is the Editor-in-Chief of Lightwave. He establishes and executes Lightwave's editorial strategy across its website, email newsletters, events, and other information products. Before coming to Lightwave in July 2023, he served as editor of Broadband Communities. Earlier, he served as senior editor of FierceTelecom and the editor of the former Telecommunications Magazine. He got his start in the optical industry in 1998 when he became the editor of enterprise and optical networks at Information Gatekeepers. He has a BA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and lives in Dracut, Mass, with his wife, two sons, and his cat, Dove.
