Lucent Technologies has won the battle to take over
bankrupt Riverstone Networks, after beating off a late bid by rival
infrastructure provider Ericsson.
Last month, Lucent made the first move to buy the assets of
Riverstone for $170m (£100m), an offer Riverstone had accepted. But
Ericsson made a late bid of $178m for Riverstone.
Lucent won out earlier this week though, with a final bid of
$207m. The Riverstone assets will bolster Lucent’s network
equipment portfolio.
Riverstone is a specialist in Ethernet hardware that can be used
in carrier networks. This is a growing market area as service
providers increasingly opt for Ethernet-based systems, which are
seen as more flexible than traditional carrier network
solutions.
Ericsson was on the expansion path after recently acquiring the
majority of Marconi’s network hardware assets.
Before trying to buy Riverstone, Ericsson was rumoured to be
interested in buying Juniper Networks, the world’s number two
router supplier behind Cisco.
After failing in its relatively cut-price attempt to buy
Riverstone, it may now return to the much more expensive option of
buying Juniper.
Lucent’s Riverstone buy has to be approved by a US bankruptcy
court. The two sides expect the deal to go through next month.