Plantronics is acquiring Polycom, one of the most popular brands in enterprise video conferencing. The acquisition is valued at $2.0 billion in a combination of cash and stock. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by the end of the third calendar quarter of 2018.
Under terms of the definitive agreement, Plantronics will acquire Polycom for $2.0 billion enterprise value consisting of an estimated $690 million of net debt and an estimated $948 million in cash and 6.352 million Plantronics shares, valued at $362 million based on the 20 trading day average closing price of Plantronics stock prior to signing, resulting in Polycom shareholders owning approximately 16.0% of the combined company.
The decision to acquire a company often comes after a significant investigation of the similarities in corporate goals and Plantronics clearly believes Polycom is critical to their future growth.
- Accelerates Plantronics Strategy. Polycom brings a global leadership position in voice and video collaboration, accelerating Plantronics
vision of delivering new communications and collaboration experiences. - Broadens Portfolio. With the addition of Polycom, Plantronics will have the broadest portfolio of complementary products and services
across the global communications and collaboration ecosystem, and the ability to create exceptional user experiences. - Expands Market Opportunity. The combination positions Plantronics to capture additional opportunities across the $39.9B Unified
Communications and Collaboration industry driven by innovation in video and the ubiquity of audio, building growth opportunities
through data analytics and insight services. - Augments Services Business. Polycom significantly expands Plantronics services offering, providing a meaningful presence in
management and analytics services.
Today’s news will further accelerate Plantronics vision of an enterprise that is able to leverage powerful analytics, video and audio
touchpoints to ignite all new communications and collaboration experiences.
President and CEO, Plantronics, Joe Burton said,
“With the addition of Polycom’s solutions across video, audio and collaboration we will be able to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of communications and collaboration touch points and services to our customers and channel partners. This will put Plantronics in an ideal position to solve for today’s enterprise collaboration requirements while capitalizing on market opportunities associated with the evolving, intelligent enterprise.”
CEO Polycom, Mary T. McDowell said,
“Polycom has returned to growth by focusing on building strong ecosystem partnerships and delivering innovative, smart solutions for our customers and partners,”
“Bringing Plantronics and Polycom together will broaden the breadth of solutions available to customers and partners and create a consistent end-user experience across many collaboration applications and devices. As one company, Plantronics and Polycom will make it even easier for all customers to solve big-business problems through human-to-human connections.”
