Reliance set to drop $70 million on Radisys to help with the move to 5G

Giant Indian telecoms conglomerate Reliance has agreed to buy US open telecoms solutions provider Radisys for around $70 million.

Radisys describes itself as a leader in providing open telecoms solutions. In practice this points towards strengths in NFV, CORD and telecoms cloud in general. Reliance, which launched its massively disruptive MNO Jio less than two years ago, seems to have decided it needs to invest heavily in the next generation of tech if it is to consolidate its position.

“Reliance and Jio have been disrupting legacy business models and establishing new global benchmarks,” said Akash Ambani, Director of Reliance Jio. “Radisys’ top-class management and engineering team offer Reliance rapid innovation and solution development expertise globally, which complements our work towards software-centric disaggregated networks and platforms, enhancing the value to customers across consumer and enterprise segments.

“This acquisition further accelerates Jio’s global innovation and technology leadership in the areas of 5G, IOT and open source architecture adoption.”

“The backing and support of India-based global conglomerate Reliance, will accelerate our strategy and the scale required by our customers to further deploy our full suite of products and services,” said Brian Bronson, CEO of Radisys. “The Radisys team will continue to work independently on driving its future growth, innovation and expansion. The addition of Reliance’s visionary leadership and strong market position will enhance Radisys’ ability to develop and integrate large-scale, disruptive, open-centric end-to-end solutions.”

The agreement is for Reliance to pay $1.72 per share for Radisys, which equates to around $70 million in total and is around 2.5x the $0.70 what the shares cost at the end of last week. Investors don’t seem to be totally convinced the deal will go through, however, because Radisys shares were trading at $1.60 at time of writing. Maybe they’re concerned the Trump administration’s economic nationalism will have a part to play.