The three-way laser war seems over. Now it is time to assess the battlefield damage.
Coherent Inc. announced Thursday morning that it has accepted the most recent acquisition offer from II-VI (pronounced two-six). That cash and stock offer values the laser component maker at around $281 per share based on the previous day’s closing prices—a 24% raise from the value of the original deal the company struck with Lumentum in January. It also spurns a revised offer from Lumentum from earlier this week that offered $10 per share more in cash than the winning bid from II-VI.
Coherent is therefore betting big that II-VI’s stock price recovers from the significant damage done by the unusual bidding war that saw three companies competing for Coherent’s hand. Lumentum, II-VI and MKS Instruments combined made a total of 10 competing offers for the company.
All were a mix of cash and stock, though all three companies ratcheted up the cash portions of their offers significantly as their own equity values slid during the process.
Before Lumentum’s announcement on Thursday, II-VI shares had lost a third of their value since its original bid in February, while Lumentum was down 26% from when it started the process. MKS, which seemed to pull out of the process earlier this month, was down just 5%.
