Mergers and Acquisitions: Plantronics set to Acquire Polycom for $2 billion

Plantronics and Polycom have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Plantronics will acquire Polycom in a cash and stock transaction valued at $2.0 billion enterprise value.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by the end of the third calendar quarter of 2018.

Compelling Strategic Rationale

With the acquisition of Polycom, Plantronics will become the partner of choice for the communications and collaboration ecosystem. The combination:

Accelerates Plantronics Strategy. Polycom brings a global leadership position in voice and video collaboration, accelerating Plantronics vision of delivering new communications and collaboration experiences.

Broadens Portfolio. With the addition of Polycom, Plantronics will have the broadest portfolio of complementary products and services across the global communications and collaboration ecosystem, and the ability to create exceptional user experiences.·

Expands Market Opportunity. The combination positions Plantronics to capture additional opportunities across the $39.9B Unified Communications and Collaboration industry driven by innovation in video and the ubiquity of audio, building growth opportunities through data analytics and insight services.·

Augments Services Business. Polycom significantly expands Plantronics services offering, providing a meaningful presence in management and analytics services.

Today's news will further accelerate Plantronics vision of an enterprise that is able to leverage powerful analytics, video and audio touchpoints to ignite all new communications and collaboration experiences. According to Joe Burton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Plantronics, "With the addition of Polycom's solutions across video, audio and collaboration we will be able to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of communications and collaboration touch points and services to our customers and channel partners. This will put Plantronics in an ideal position to solve for today's enterprise collaboration requirements while capitalizing on market opportunities associated with the evolving, intelligent enterprise.”

“Polycom has returned to growth by focusing on building strong ecosystem partnerships and delivering innovative, smart solutions for our customers and partners," said Mary T. McDowell, Chief Executive Officer, Polycom. "Bringing Plantronics and Polycom together will broaden the breadth of solutions available to customers and partners and create a consistent end-user experience across many collaboration applications and devices. As one company, Plantronics and Polycom will make it even easier for all customers to solve big-business problems through human-to-human connections.”

“Siris recognizes the incredible opportunity in the Unified Communications industry and has been focused on building momentum in the industry for several years,” said Frank Baker, Founder and Managing Partner, Siris Capital. “We are excited about the long-term value that the combination of Plantronics and Polycom will create for customers, partners, stakeholders and employees.”

Polycom is a Leading Global provider of Communications and Collaboration Technologies Polycom is privately held and has been an innovator in personal collaboration, group collaboration, and services (including customer care, managed and professional services, and cloud services for interoperability, management, and analytics). For CY2017, Polycom had GAAP revenue of $1.1 billion, Non-GAAP gross margin of 56.6%, Non-GAAP operating income of $183.1 million and Non-GAAP operating margin of 16.0%.