Arris Gets DoJ OK For Its $2.35B Acquisition Of Motorola Home Broadband Business From Google, Deal Closing Around April 17
Another key chapter in Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola is getting concluded. Today Arris announced that it has received approval from the U.S. Department of Justice for its acquisition of Motorola Home broadband unit from Google — a deal valued at $2.35 billion when it was announced in December 2012 — $2.05 billion in cash and approximately $300 million in newly issues Arris shares. With this, Arris now has all regulatory approvals and will close the transaction on or about April 17, it says.
After the deal closes, Google would have owned about 15.7% of Arris. However, after the Google sale was announced, Comcast also agreed to take a stake in Arris. Arris said the cable company would pay $150 million to take a 7.85% share of the company, and that will reduce Google’s stake to the same amount.
“We share a similar vision and strategy with Arris for the industry’s migration to IP. The combination of our solutions, expert technologists and roadmaps promises to transform how service providers deliver the smart, simple connected home to consumers throughout the world,” said Marwan Fawaz, executive vice president of Motorola Mobility who leads Motorola Home, at the time of the announcement in December.
The deal is a further sharpening of Google’s Motorla assets as a mobile-only play, transferring some 7,000 employees over to Arris in the process. It also takes off of the search giant’s hands a rather large patent suit, brought by TiVo.
That case sought damages in the “billions of dollars” over patent violations, while Motorola was also counterclaiming that TiVo was violating patents of Morotola’s.
When Arris’ acquisition was announced in December, CEO Bob Stanzione suggested that one of the sweeteners for the purchase of Motorola Home was that Arris’ liability in that case, were TiVo to win it, would be capped.
“It’s not something you have to worry about in terms of the financial impact on Arris,” he said. “Google has taken that risk off the table for Arris.”
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