Washington-based buyout firm Carlyle Group, reports Bloomberg, is talking to CommScope about striking a $3 billion deal for the wiring and cabling company.
Wall Street seems to be favoring such a deal. When news leaked that Carlyle, which as noted in a FierceCable story is still a relative newcomer in both the cable and telecom industries, could buy all of CommScope's outstanding shares for $31.50 a piece in cash, the company's stock rose about 33 percent.
Not surprisingly, the interest in CommScope's fiber cabling products is being driven by last mile fiber network efforts by Verizon, France Telecom and the Australia government's National Broadband Network (NBN).
"The demand for fiber-optic cable is going to go through the roof in the next three to five years," said Will Draper, a telecommunications analyst at Execution Noble in London.
However, it looks like right now the talks are largely preliminary and that neither company has reached an agreement or that any purchase will be reached.
For more:
- Bloomberg has this article
- Here's FierceCable's take
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