[November 23, 2009] Ciena Corp. wins bid for Nortel assets in bankruptcy auction Tweet Nov 23, 2009 (The Baltimore Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Ciena Corp., a Linthicum-based maker of fiber optic gear, said Monday that it won a bid for the optical-networking assets of Nortel Networks Corp. in a deal worth $769 million. The company reportedly beat an unspecified competing bid from Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Finland's Nokia Corp. and Germany's Siemens AG, during a bankruptcy auction that started Friday and lasted through the weekend, according to the Wall Street Journal. Ciena agreed to pay $530 million in cash and to issue $239 million in senior convertible notes to Nortel, a Canadian-based company that has filed for bankruptcy protection in both Canada and the United States. The acquisition of Nortel's Metro Ethernet Networks subsidiary would position Ciena as North America's largest maker of network equipment and allow it compete more effectively on a global scale, according to analysts. The acquisition would essentially double the size of Ciena's workforce, which currently stands at 2,100, with 700 in Maryland. The company has said it would offer jobs to about 2,000 Nortel employees. Ciena said the assets the company is acquiring generated $1.36 billion in revenue for Nortel in 2008, and $556 million in revenue for the first six months of 2009. The company expects the purchase to close in the first quarter of next year. To see more of The Baltimore Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.baltimoresun.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Baltimore Sun Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]