Finisar & Optium Challenge JDSU

Written by roman

Saturday, 17 May 2008 09:30

Finisar Corp. (Nasdaq: FNSR - message board) and Optium Corp. (Nasdaq: OPTM - message board) are joining forces in an all-stock merger, a deal that at long last creates a large-scale optical competitor to JDS Uniphase Corp. (Nasdaq: JDSU - message board; Toronto: JDU).  It's one of those merger-of-equals deals, with the companies pooling stock and the two CEOs sharing the helm. Each Optium share would be traded for 6.262 Finisar shares, making the deal worth $244 million as of Friday evening. The new company will be called Finisar and will retain the FNSR stock ticker.