PITTSBURGH and SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 01, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — II‐VI Incorporated (Nasdaq: IIVI) today successfully completed the acquisition of Coherent, Inc. (Nasdaq: COHR), forming a global leader in materials, networking, and lasers.
Under the terms of the merger agreement, each share of Coherent common stock was converted into the right to receive $220.00 in cash and 0.91 of a share of II-VI common stock.
Both organizations bring their own formidable strengths. The combined business will be more distributed across the value chain from materials to components, subsystems, systems, and service. II-VI’s scale, at the levels of the value chain where expertise in materials matters, is complementary to Coherent’s scale where laser systems play. The combined company will leverage that complementary scale in ways that will really matter to our customers in strategic markets.
“Coherent is an innovator with a rich portfolio of some of the most advanced technologies in the world, which have been transformative in a broad range of markets,” said Dr. Vincent D. Mattera, Jr., Chair and CEO of II-VI. “I would like to thank Andy Mattes for his leadership of Coherent and enabling a very successful integration planning process.”
Dr. Mattera continued, “I am also very excited to announce a new direction for our brand: We plan for the combined company to be named Coherent. We will soon announce the date of the launch of our new brand identity. While the name Coherent has a strong association with lasers, the broader meaning of the word is ‘bringing things together.’ It represents our diversity in thinking distilled into our clarity of purpose, our unity in action, and our broader sense of engagement by connection to our mission, vision, and values.
“With our foundation in materials and our unstoppable imagination, we will enable the next evolution of the cloud, 3D sensing, electric vehicles, additive manufacturing, the commercialization of space, and the personalization of health care, just to name a few. We are together on a journey towards a future that will be increasingly mobile, intelligent, and electric, accelerating the pace of innovation and enabling a stream of spectacular successes that will sustainably change the world around us,” he said.
The combined company will serve the four markets of industrial, communications, electronics, and instrumentation, which together represent a fast-growing total addressable market of $65 billion. All four markets are growing and provide exciting opportunities for our employees to play an increasingly larger role in transforming the world. The combined company’s global workforce of over 28,000 associates in 130 locations worldwide is dedicated to the Company’s enduring vision of a world transformed through innovations vital to a better life today and the sustainability of future generations.
Management and Board of Directors
II-VI will continue to be led by a proven leadership team that leverages the strengths of the combined company and will continue to leverage a Board of Directors comprised of seasoned executives and thought leaders from highly diverse industries. We are also pleased to welcome Stephen A. Skaggs and Sandeep S. Vij, former directors of Coherent, to our Board.
Reporting Segments
The combined company will be organized into three business segments. Dr. Giovanni Barbarossa will continue to serve as the Chief Strategy Officer of the company and lead the Materials Segment, previously referred to as the Compound Semiconductors Segment. Sunny Sun will continue to lead the Networking Segment, which was previously the Photonic Solutions Segment. Dr. Mark Sobey, formerly the COO and Executive Vice President of Coherent, will be the President of our new Lasers Segment.
Together, these three powerful segments will be the vanguard of our new brand promise: We will empower our customers to define the future through our breakthrough technologies. Our three segments will deliver innovations that resonate strongly with our customers.
Advisors
Allen & Company LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are acting as II-VI’s financial advisors, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and K&L Gates LLP are serving as legal advisors to II-VI.
Bank of America and Credit Suisse are serving as financial advisors to Coherent, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is serving as legal advisor to Coherent.
About II-VI Incorporated
II-VI Incorporated, a global leader in engineered materials and optoelectronic components, is a vertically integrated manufacturing company that develops innovative products for diversified applications in communications, industrial, aerospace & defense, semiconductor capital equipment, life sciences, consumer electronics, and automotive markets. Headquartered in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, II-VI has research and development, manufacturing, sales, service, and distribution facilities worldwide. II-VI produces a wide variety of application-specific photonic and electronic materials and components, and deploys them in various forms, including integrated with advanced software to support our customers. For more information about II-VI, visit II-VI’s website at www.ii-vi.com.
