Cisco announces intent to buy Viptela for $610m in cash

Network equipment maker Cisco Systems on Monday announced its intent to buy privately held Viptela for $610m in cash and assumed equity awards.

Viptela, a San Jose-based software-defined wide area network company, creates products that simplify management and helps manage connections over broadband and cellular networks.

“Viptela’s technology is cloud-first, with a focus on simplicity and ease of deployment while simultaneously providing a rich set of capabilities and scale,” Scott Harrell, a Cisco Enterprise Networking Group executive, said. “These principles are what today’s customers demand.”

The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of the year pending regulatory reviews. The news comes after Cisco said earlier this year that it would spend $3.7bn to buy AppDynamics.

Cisco chief executive Chuck Robbins told the FT in February that his company was open to large strategic acquisitions as its seeks fresh sources of revenue growth.

Deals in the technology sector have gained renewed attention following Donald Trump’s pledges to apply a lower tax rate to repatriated cash.

Indeed the technology sector accounted for 55 per cent of the $1.3tn in total US corporate cash held overseas last year, according to Moody’s and tech shares have rallied on expectations that cash that is moved back to the US could be use to boost buybacks and dividends or drive acquisitions and capital spending.