Infinera Restructures as It Absorbs Coriant

The optical networking vendor said in a filing with the SEC that it will take a charge against earnings related to severance and other related costs.

Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief

December 14, 2018

2 Min Read
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Infinera said it will take a charge against earnings in the range of $6 million to $8 million related to a restructuring that's going on right now.

The company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that this charge covers "severance and employee-related costs."

When asked to comment by Light Reading, Infinera declined to reveal how many people it is cutting as part of the restructuring. When the company closed its acquisition of Coriant, the company said it was adding approximately 2,100 employees, over 1,600 patents and more than 600 customers globally. (See The New Infinera Is Already on Edge and Infinera, Coriant Hear a $430M Siren Song of Synergy .)

Figure 1: Infinera's December 10 SEC filing reimagined as Santa's naughty list. Infinera's December 10 SEC filing reimagined as Santa's naughty list.

By itself, Infinera employed 2,145 people as of December 30, 2017; about 1,003 of those employees were outside the US. Given that background, one could start counting back from 4,245 to find out the possible severity of the company's latest rounds of cuts.

Several challenges are ahead for Infinera as it slims down its operations. The company has to retain a key customer with CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) and Level 3, where it has a significant amount of long-haul WDM business to protect. It also needs to successfully integrate its ICE offerings into Coriant's products to get to the kind of price and performance metrics that will help it reach the $250 million in merger synergies it said it would hit by 2021. (See Infinera Shifts Up a Gear With Its Latest Optical Engine and Infinera's Integration Situation Needs More Explanation.)

— Phil Harvey, US News Editor, Light Reading

About the Author

Phil Harvey

Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

Phil Harvey has been a Light Reading writer and editor for more than 18 years combined. He began his second tour as the site's chief editor in April 2020.

His interest in speed and scale means he often covers optical networking and the foundational technologies powering the modern Internet.

Harvey covered networking, Internet infrastructure and dot-com mania in the late 90s for Silicon Valley magazines like UPSIDE and Red Herring before joining Light Reading (for the first time) in late 2000.

After moving to the Republic of Texas, Harvey spent eight years as a contributing tech writer for D CEO magazine, producing columns about tech advances in everything from supercomputing to cellphone recycling.

Harvey is an avid photographer and camera collector – if you accept that compulsive shopping and "collecting" are the same.

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