Ekinops drops pursuit of Alcatel Submarine Networks

French optical transport systems house Ekinops (Euronext Paris: EKI) (ISIN: FR0011466069) issued a terse statement April 12 that it has ended its pursuit of Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN).

Last October, the company confirmed press reports that it had entered discussions with Nokia about a potential acquisition of Nokia’s submarine cable systems technology and deployment subsidiary (see “Ekinops acknowledges talks with Nokia on possible purchase of Alcatel Submarine Networks”). “Since that date, we have continued to investigate the possible acquisition of ASN and have been discussing potential deal terms with Nokia Corporation,” Ekinops said this past Friday. “However no agreement has been reached with Nokia and the discussions have now been discontinued.”

Analysts had assumed Nokia would try to offload ASN in the wake of its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in 2016. Alcatel-Lucent had attempted to sell ASN itself before the Nokia deal closed (see “Nokia unveils company structure post Alcatel-Lucent acquisition”). TE Connectivity recently sold its submarine networks unit, TE SubCom, to private investment company Cerberus Capital Management (see “Cerberus wraps up TE SubCom buy, names new CEO”), raising hopes that interest in the booming submarine cable market might make an ASN sale more likely.

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