- Casa filed for bankruptcy in April, and it seemed Vecima would snag Casa’s cable assets
- But in a bankruptcy auction, CommScope scooped up the cable assets
- CommScope says the assets with strengthen its Access Network Solutions business
In a surprise turn of events, CommScope will pay $45.1 million to purchase the cable assets of Casa Systems. It had previously seemed that Vecima Networks would snag these assets from Casa’s bankruptcy proceeding.
But on May 29 CommScope entered the winning bid through a bankruptcy auction. A sale hearing is scheduled with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware next week, and the transaction is expected to close June 6.
CommScope said the assets will strengthen its Access Network Solutions business, including enhancing its virtual cable modem termination system (CMTS) and passive optical network (PON) product offerings.
Chuck Treadway, CEO of CommScope, stated: “As a leader in the cable industry, we are quite pleased by the opportunity to acquire Casa’s cloud-native network solutions. Adding Casa’s technology to our portfolio will allow us to provide a seamless transition for our combined customer base that utilize both integrated and virtual CMTS products.”
“This transaction provides stability to Casa’s customers while allowing CommScope to further grow our customer base as we enable customers to migrate to Distributed Access Architecture solutions on their own timeline,” he added.
Casa announced in early April that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with plans to sell off its 5G core, RAN and cable assets. At that time, Casa indicated it would sell its cable assets to Vecima Networks.
Vecima had placed an initial $20 million bid for Casa’s cable assets. However, Casa had asked the bankruptcy court to approve procedures for soliciting additional bids and to set an auction for the cable assets for mid-May.
And in swooped CommScope with the winning bid at the much higher price of $45.1 million.
Vecima Networks was designated the back-up bidder at the auction with Vecima’s final top bid of $44.95 million.
Vecima said the auction was a competitive day-long process that consisted of multiple rounds of bidding by Vecima and several other interested parties. Vecima conducted extensive due diligence prior to the auction and, based on those insights, made the decision at the end of the auction not to increase its bid any further when the proposed price was no longer reasonably supported by Vecima’s valuation of the assets.
“Irrespective of the outcome of the auction, Vecima remains firmly positioned to drive the industry forward to the multi-gigabit networks of the future across both fiber and cable access,” said Sumit Kumar, Vecima president and CEO.
Ironically, Vecima Networks recently touted “record” third quarter fiscal year 2024 revenue of CAD $80.1 million ($58.9 million). The stars of the show were Vecima’s Entra distributed access architecture (DAA) portfolio along with its Video and Broadband Solutions (VBS) segment.
In contrast, CommScope reported net sales for its first quarter 2024 of $1.16 billion, down 29.8% compared to the same quarter last year.
CommScope’s Access Network Solutions business was down 37.6% year over year.
