Ciena deal helps make up for Black & Decker loss
Linthicum-based Ciena Corp., a tech startup and superstar in the 1990s, is buying Nortel's fiber-optic networking business for $769 million. This is good news for the metro-Baltimore economy and helps make up for the fact that the region is losing Black & Decker's headquarters to Connecticut. Connecticut-based Stanley Works is buying Black & Decker and will lay off lots of employees at B&D's Towson headquarters.
Unlike Black & Decker's mature business, Ciena's is still developing, meaning more growth may be more likely. Ciena is not a Fortune 500 company like Black & Decker. It's not even in the Fortune 1,000. But this deal, if it's approved by antitrust authorities, would get it there. Put together the Ciena and Nortel operations would have about about $2 billion in revenue, which ought to put them somewhere in the upper reaches of the Fortune 1,000 on next year's list.
Reports The Sun's Gus Sentementes:
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.
Comments
Nothing will stop this downward slide until the so called free trade agreements are repealed. Until then there will be many more bargain basement mergers with lukewarm results. B&D is one of the leaders in outsourcing production to the Chinese back in the 90's. Now we see the result. Business suicides like this cost many hardships. Repeal the freetrade agreements now and end this madness. There will soon be no one left here in the USA able to afford any of these products. Then what??
Posted by: mellowde | November 26, 2009 10:21 PM