Newbridge buys UB from Tandem

The acquisition of the Lan specialist has gone ahead despite abreakdown of talks in November

Newbridge Networks has agreed to buy UB Networks from Tandem Computers for an undisclosed sum, after an initial deal fell through last November.

Wide area specialist Newbridge signed a letter of intent to buy UB last month, ending the months of speculation over who would snap up the Lan vendor. Compaq and Hewlett Packard were among those to have held acquisition talks with UB, which had said it wanted a deal with a computer company rather than a network specialist.

A source close to Newbridge said the firm had withdrawn from negotiations at the beginning of November, when it became clear UB was worth less than previously thought, because some of its technology licences were owned by Compaq.

'The deal in the end was for asset value, but very strategic for Newbridge,' said the source. 'UB has not been in decline, but has also not been doing as well as other networking players.'

Mark Powell, European marketing director at UB, said the Newbridge deal was the best possible result. 'We are not being taken out by a hostile competitor,' he said.

'There is minimal overlap in our products and in our customer base, so not only do the Vivid and Geolan 500 ranges fit very comfortably together, but we have each got instant introductions to new markets.'

UB will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Newbridge Networks and Powell said he expected it to become fully integrated following the example of OST, which was acquired by Newbridge in August. 'Newbridge wants to align the two firms closely, to have one culture,' he said.