India-based conglomerate Reliance Industries, parent company of Indian telecom market disruptor Reliance Jio, has agreed to buy U.S.-based telecom software and hardware company Radisys for $1.72 per share in cash.
Akash Ambani, Director of Reliance Jio, said in a statement that the acquisition “further accelerates Jio’s global innovation and technology leadership in the areas of 5G, IoT and open source architecture adoption.” The transaction is subject to
“Radisys’ top-class management and engineering team offer Reliance rapid innovation and solution development expertise globally, which complements our work towards software-centric disaggregated networks and platforms, enhancing the value to customers across consumer and enterprise segments,” said Ambani.
Radisys is based in Hillsboro, Oregon and has almost 600 employees, including an engineering team based in Bangalore, India.
Radisys has been focused on 5G and an increasingly telecom-software-centric strategy, with recent news including work on virtualized Radio Access Network development and a release of 5G New Radio nonstandalone software earlier this month; that Radisys 5G NR NSA software is integrated with Intel’s 5G reference architecture and already in use in a Tier 1 service provider 5G trial in North America, according to the company.
In its most recent quarterly results, Radisys reported revenues of $26.2 million, with software systems revenues up 10% year-over-year — although hardware still accounted for more than half of its revenues. The company has been going through a recent restructuring on the hardware side as and has struggled with profitability; it reported a net loss of $6.4 million in the most recent quarter. In June, Credit Risk Monitor categorized the company as at high-risk of bankruptcy in the next 12 months.
Brian Bronson, CEO of Radisys, said having Reliance’s backing “will accelerate our strategy and the scale required by our customers to further deploy our full suite of products and services. The Radisys team will continue to work independently on driving its future growth, innovation and expansion. The addition of Reliance’s visionary leadership and strong market position will enhance Radisys’ ability to develop and integrate large-scale, disruptive, open-centric end-to-end solutions.”
