HP Inc. to Acquire Poly
HP Inc. announced a definitive agreement to acquire Poly, a global provider of workplace collaboration solutions, in an all-cash transaction for $40 per share, implying a total enterprise value of $3.3 billion, inclusive of Poly’s net debt.
The acquisition accelerates what HP calls its “strategy to create a more growth-oriented portfolio, further strengthens its industry opportunity in hybrid work solutions, and positions the company for long-term sustainable growth and value creation.”
“The rise of the hybrid office creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine the way work gets done,” said Enrique Lores, president and CEO of HP. “Combining HP and Poly creates a leading portfolio of hybrid work solutions across large and growing markets. Poly’s strong technology, complementary go-to-market, and talented team will help to drive long-term profitable growth as we continue building a stronger HP.”
Dave Shull, Poly CEO and president, added: “I am thrilled about the opportunity this represents for Poly, our employees, partners and customers. The combination gives us an opportunity to dramatically scale, reaching new markets and channels, supercharging our innovation with a like-minded partner. This transaction offers compelling and certain value for our shareholders and speaks to the hard work done by our teams to become a recognized leader in helping businesses everywhere meet the challenges of a generational disruption in the way people work.”
The companies say Poly will help drive the growth and scale of HP’s peripherals and workforce solutions businesses. They also say Poly’s devices, software and services, combined with HP’s strengths across compute, device management, and security, creates a robust portfolio of hybrid meeting solutions.
Together, HP and Poly will deliver a complete ecosystem of devices, software, and digital services to create premium employee experiences, improve workforce productivity, and provide enterprise customers with better visibility, insights, security, and manageability across their hybrid IT environments.
HP expects the transaction to be immediately accretive to HP’s revenue growth, margins and non-GAAP EPS at close. With the expanded value proposition of a complete hybrid work solution, combined with HP’s scale and go-to-market capabilities, HP says it expects to realize substantial revenue synergies in peripherals as well as meeting room and workforce solutions. HP will be able to cross-sell across its global commercial and consumer sales channels, while driving incremental sales from combining Poly’s products with HP’s PC portfolio. As a result, HP expects to achieve $500 million of revenue synergies by FY25 and accelerate Poly’s revenue growth to an approximately 15% CAGR over the first three years after closing. In addition, HP expects the transaction to improve Poly’s operating margins by approximately six percentage points from current levels by FY25, driven by scale efficiencies across supply chain, manufacturing and overhead.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of calendar 2022, subject to Poly stockholder approval, required regulatory clearances, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. HP will finance the transaction through a combination of balance sheet cash and new debt.