Accelerating photonics innovation, Lumentum will acquire Coherent

Optics and photonics components maker Lumentum (San Jose, CA) and laser maker Coherent (Santa Clara, CA) have entered into a definitive agreement under which Lumentum will acquire Coherent in a cash and stock transaction valued at $5.7 billion. The combination will bring together Coherent’s photonics and lasers businesses, including in the microelectronics, precision manufacturing, instrumentation, and aerospace & defense markets, with Lumentum’s telecom, datacom, and 3D sensing photonics businesses, creating a diversified photonics technology company with significantly increased scale and market reach.

The combination also accelerates Lumentum’s penetration of the more than $10 billion market for lasers and photonics outside of the communications and 3D sensing applications. It will better serve the needs of a global customer base increasingly dependent on photonics to enable important end-market transitions, including the shift to digital and virtual approaches to work and life, the transition to 5G in wireless networking, advanced bioinstrumentation, advanced microelectronics, and new materials for next-generation consumer electronic devices, flat-panel and OLED displays, communications equipment, electric and autonomous vehicles, and energy storage.

Two members of the Coherent Board of Directors will be appointed to the Lumentum Board, which will be expanded to nine directors, at the closing of the transaction. 

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of calendar-year 2021, subject to approval by Lumentum’s and Coherent’s stockholders, receipt of regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions.

Source: Lumentum press release via PR Newswire – January 19, 2021