Update: Huawei, investment fund to buy 3Com for $2B

Network equipment vendor 3Com has agreed to be acquired by associates of Bain Capital and of Huawei Technology in a deal worth $2.2 billion, 3Com said Friday.

Huawei affiliate Shenzhen Huawei Investment & Holding Co. will take an unspecified minority stake in the company, and will be a commercial and strategic partner of the company, 3Com said.

3Com and Huawei are former joint venture partners. In 2003 they set up Huawei-3Com, an enterprise networking equipment company with headquarters in Hong Kong and factories in China. Last November, 3Com ended the alliance by paying $882 million for Huawei's 49 percent stake in the venture, now called H3C Technologies.

As part of that sale, Huawei agreed not to compete with 3Com in certain markets, and remains one of the company's largest customers: around 30 percent of H3C's business comes from Huawei, company officials said Friday.

It's not the first time this year that investment funds have taken a major networking company private: enterprise telecommunications equipment vendor Avaya was bought by Silver Lake Partners and the Texas Pacific Group for $8.2 billion.

Reports that 3Com was for sale have been circulating since earlier this year. Back in July, networking rival Nortel Networks was said to have shown an interest.

The $2.2 billion price tag represents a 44 percent premium over Thursday's closing share price, 3Com said. Bain hopes to close the deal by the first quarter of next year, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

3Com reported financial results for the quarter to Aug. 31 last week. Sales for the quarter totaled $319 million, up 6 percent on a year earlier, but the company's net loss widened, to $18.7 million from $14.1 million a year earlier.