Aurora Closes Acquisition of Harmonic's Cable Access Unit

Aurora Networks’ agreement to purchase the assets of Harmonic’s optical transmission equipment business for $46 million in cash closed on Tuesday, March 5, the companies said.

Harmonic said the deal, announced Feb. 19, will let it focus on higher-margin video and cable edge products. Aurora Networks said the acquisition will boost its market share lead in the optical transport market.

“With the closing of the acquisition behind us, we are now focused on a swift integration of the product lines into our systems with a goal of minimum customer inconvenience,” Aurora vice president of new business development Scott Weinstein said in a statement.

According to Weinstein, Aurora expects to integrate Harmonic’s Cable Access business unit within four months. “We firmly believe that this acquisition will increase our ability to innovate new technologies enabling us to continue to grow and provide our customers with solutions that will ensure their potential to meet future challenges,” he said.

For the calendar year 2012, Harmonic’s Cable Access business generated $52.9 million of net revenue with gross margin of approximately 30%, according to the company. Harmonic said it expects that the sale of the business to be neutral to diluted earnings per share for 2013, excluding the impact of its share repurchase program.