Ericsson picks up Cradlepoint for enterprise value of $1.1 billion

Ericsson announced on Friday that it has acquired Cradlepoint in a deal that values the enterprise at $1.1 billion.

The Swedish carrier equipment manufacturer said Cradlepoint had SEK1.2 billion in sales for 2019, which is approximately $137 million, with a margin of 61%.

After dragging Ericsson's margins down by 1% in 2021 and 2022, it is expected the deal will start to make a contribution to operating cash-flow in 2022.

Cradlepoint and its over 650 staff will be a standalone subsidiary of Ericsson, and remain headquartered in Boise, Idaho with offices in Silicon Valley, the UK, and Australia. It will be part of Ericsson's business area technologies and new businesses segment.

The company describes itself as providing "cloud-delivered wireless edge solutions for branch, mobile, and IoT networks". Cradlepoint has over 20,000 customers, 1,500 channel partners, and over 1 million SaaS subscriptions.

"Ericsson is uniquely positioned to build on Cradlepoint's leadership position in wireless edge and the wireless WAN market," CEO Börje Ekholm said.

"Combining the scale of our market access and established relationships with the world's biggest mobile operators we are making a strong investment to support our customers to grow in this exciting market."

In a call, Ekholm said Cradlepoint is currently focused on the US market, but that the subsidiary has significant potential outside America.

On the other side of the planet, and the weekend, Indian giant HCL entered into a scheme on Monday to acquire the shares of Australian IT services vendor DWS for a valuation of AU$162 million. This deal will also be cash funded, and should the deal get the proper approvals, it will be implemented on December 8.

At the end of June, DWS had 770 full time equivalent staff.

For its full year results posted in August, DWS reported a 2.7% increase in revenue to AU$168 million, with reported EBITDA down AU$1.45 million to AU$20.5 million, and net profit down by AU$2.8 million to AU$7.5 million.

DWS said COVID-19 had an impact on its results, with its Symplicit business receiving AU$400,000 in JobKeeper payments and applying for rent relief on its Sydney and Melbourne offices.

"DWS has grown revenue and underlying EBITDA with growth in federal government and state government client work greater than reductions in banking and finance and IT&C client work," it said.

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