Investment Group Extends Vyyo Tender

An investment group led by Davidi Gilo has extended the expiration date for its tender offer to purchase all outstanding shares of Vyyo Inc. (Nasdaq: VYYO) to midnight tonight (Eastern Time).

Vision Acquisition Corp., a subsidiary of Gilo Ventures II LP and helmed by the former Vyyo CEO and board chairman, has offered 17 cents per share for Vyyo, a maker of 3 GHz overlay technology that has struggled to gain wide acceptance by cable operators. The tender offer, originally slated to close on Wednesday, Oct. 23, is valued at roughly $45 million with both debt and equity factored in. (See Exclusive: Gilo Offers $45M for Vyyo .)

Vyyo, which was trading at 17 cents per share this morning, has a market cap of about $3.18 million. The stock was delisted from the Nasdaq on April 21, and is currently traded on the Pink Sheets.

Vision said a total of 7,967,781 shares of common Vyyo stock, or 53.72 percent of outstanding shares not already held by Vision or its affiliates as of Sept. 15, 2008, had been tendered and not withdrawn by the close of business on Wednesday.

According to the deal details obtained earlier by Cable Digital News, Vyyo anticipates that the resulting "NewCo" will be headed up by current Vyyo chairman Jim Chiddix and CEO Wayne Davis. Following a recent string of layoffs and other cost-cutting measures, Vyyo filed a 10-K document indicating it was rapidly running out of financial runway. (See Vyyo Details Restructuring and Vyyo on Life Support .)

Once the deal clears, the new entity expects to fuse its 3 GHz UltraBand technology into a "single box" node that aims to make the platform easier and more cost-effective for cable operators to deploy as they look to expand bandwidth for Docsis 3.0, high-definition television, and other advanced services.

Cox Communications Inc. and StarHub are considered the marquee customers of Vyyo, which is headquartered in Norcross, Ga. Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) and Charter Communications Inc. have also conducted lab tests on Vyyo's bandwidth-expanding platform. (See Vyyo Gets Foot in Door at Comcast, Charter .)

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Cable Digital News

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