NOKIA

Nokia Completes Acquisition of Infinera to Power Innovation in Optical Networks

Nokia announced today that it has completed its acquisition of Infinera Corporation. The San Jose, California-based company is now officially part of Nokia.

The acquisition brings together two innovation leaders with a history of pioneering the industry. It creates an optical networking innovation hub with the scale to accelerate product development roadmaps, further expanding Nokia’s ability to help network operators – whether service providers, webscale companies or companies in other industries – seize opportunities and meet the demands of the AI ​​era.

“I am delighted that we have completed the acquisition of Infinera quickly and successfully. The acquisition will significantly enhance our scale and profitability in the optical networking industry, and enable us to accelerate the pace of innovation to meet the demands of the AI ​​era. The acquisition of Infinera will drive our growth strategy in data centers and strengthen our presence both in North America and among webscale customers,” said Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO of Nokia.

“The speed with which the transaction was approved is very positive for Nokia, as is the strong support the deal has received from customers. By welcoming our new colleagues – and the expertise they bring – we are creating a new organization that will be a leader in innovation, capable of delivering a wide range of optical networking technology solutions powered by the advanced research of Nokia Bell Labs. Innovation must benefit from scale, and the expansion provided by the acquisition will enable us to deliver more to customers, faster,” said Federico Guillén, President, Network Infrastructure, Nokia.

The Infinera team will join Nokia’s Optical Networks business, led by Vice President and General Manager James Watt, while Infinera CEO David Heard will join Nokia’s Network Infrastructure business as NI Chief Strategic Growth Officer. In this role, he will help define and oversee the implementation of the business unit’s growth plans, including strategies for specific customer segments, product and market mix, and commercial approach.

“I am delighted to welcome David to Nokia’s Network Infrastructure business. His extensive experience in technology and implementing business strategies will be instrumental in helping our business unit seize market opportunities and achieve our ambitions across all regions and business areas,” added Guillén.

“From strong growth in the webscale segment to successes with service providers in metro, long-haul and submarine networks, the Infinera team’s proven track record is an ideal complement to Nokia’s recognized leadership and innovation in optical networking. I am excited about the broad opportunities this new phase brings and what it represents for Nokia and its Network Infrastructure business, and I am delighted to join the team to help accelerate its growth globally,” said Heard.

Addressing the challenges of the AI ​​era...Data centers are at an inflection point, with AI and the cloud placing massive new demands on them. To meet these challenges, data center technology needs to be rethought, with an emphasis on essential aspects of networking.

Nokia’s Network Infrastructure solutions apply critical standards to customers across all sectors, from service providers to webscale enterprises and diverse industries. With a focus on reliability, security and sustainability – as well as capacity, flexibility and manageability – Nokia is well positioned to deliver value to data center builders and users, including connections between servers within data centers to support the growing demands of AI workloads. 

€200 million synergy target confirmed...On June 28, 2024, Nokia and Infinera announced a definitive agreement under which Nokia will acquire Infinera for $6.65 per share, allowing shareholders to choose between cash, Nokia shares or a combination of both, with a proration mechanism limiting the issuance of Nokia shares to approximately 30% of the total amount paid to Infinera shareholders. All Nokia shares will be issued in the form of American Depositary Shares.

Nokia today reaffirms its expectation that the transaction will be accretive to the company’s comparable operating profit and EPS in 2025, and continues to target synergies of over €200 million by 2027, with incremental accretions over three years. The transaction is expected to be accretive to comparable EPS of over 10% in 2027.

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