Google to sell Motorola Home business to Arris for US$2.35bn

20 Dec 2012

Motorola Mobility headquarters in Libertyville, Illinois

Google is to sell its TV set-top box business Motorola Home, which it inherited earlier this year as part of its US$12.5bn acquisition of Motorola Mobility, to the communications technology company Arris Group for US$2.35bn in cash and stock.

Arris, a cable-equipment maker, is expected to use the acquisition to build up the networking equipment it offers to cable providers.

Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2013, Google will receive US$2.05bn in cash and around US$300m in stock, giving it a 15.7pc ownership stake in Arris.

“This transformational combination of two complementary businesses will create a leading end-to-end provider of today’s video, data and voice products and tomorrow’s next-generation IP-based broadband products,” said Arris chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione in a statement.

He said that the acquisition of Motorola Home would also ensure that Arris is better positioned to capitalise on and manage the evolution toward multi-screen home entertainment.

“The industry faces its biggest technology transformation, and together Arris and Motorola will be able to accelerate related innovations such as the introduction of the IP Connected Home environments that service providers need and that their consumers crave,” added Dennis Woodside, CEO of Motorola Mobility, in a statement.

Google acquired the Motorola Home division as part of its purchase of Motorola Mobility in May for US$12.5bn. At the time, the US$12.5bn deal had been Google’s biggest acquisition to date, with the company’s goal being to use Motorola’s more than 17,000 patents to ward off legal attacks on its Android operating system and develop better mobile devices.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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