Test and measurement company Keysight Technologies Inc. (Santa Rosa, Calif.) is set to buy Anite plc (Fleet, England), a developer of wireless test equipment and software, for around £388 million ($610 million). Anite’s board of directors recommended accepting the offer.
Anite supplies test platforms for Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G LTE mobile systems. The acquisition should help position Keysight as a leader in test and measurement and further its position in specialized software for wireless protocol, network and handset testing. Competitors include the privately held Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG from Germany, Danaher Corp. (a U.S. holding company that owns Tektronix, Fluke and Keithley Instruments) and Advantest Corp. of Japan.
Keysight was spun off from Agilent Technologies in November 2014. Agilent had in turn been a business line unrelated to computers and imaging that was spun off from Hewlett Packard Co. in 1999.
Keysight posted annual revenues as of Oct. 31, 2014 of $2.933 billion. It reported a net profit of $469 million. Anite posted annual sales in its financial year that ended in April 30, 2014 of about $170 million. It made a profit of roughly $20 million. Anite's customers include manufacturers of mobile devices, chipsets and network equipment, mobile network operators, regulatory authorities and independent test houses.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of October 2015.
Questions or comments on this story? Contact: peter.clarke@ihs.com
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