Siemens offloads corporate comms unit

Siemens Enterprise Communications to merge with private-equity owned Enterasys

German engineering giant Siemens has sold off part of its telecoms business, Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEC), to private equity company, The Gores Group.

Gores will integrate SEC with Enterasys, a network infrastructure company it already owns, and another of its portfolio, contact centre management specialist SER Solutions, to create a new company to be run as a joint venture with Siemens.

Founder and chairman of Gores, Alec Gores said, "We have been looking for an opportunity to expand our presence in the enterprise networking and communications space and this partnership provides the perfect fit."

The new company will create a sizeable competitor to network equipment titan Cisco. Operationally, Gores will drive the business and will be hoping that SEC's HiPath and OpenScape platforms, in combination with Enterasys' network hardware products, which includes switches, routers, VoIP security, and intrusion detection and prevention systems, will be able to dent Cisco's market share.

Both Gores and Siemens will inject $275m into the new firm for product development and further acquisitions.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal expects to close before October subject to approval from both Germany and US authorities.