GE to acquire former Tyco arm Lineage Power for $520 million

General Electric (GE), the $157-billion US-based multinational conglomerate, yesterday said that it will acquire privately held Lineage Power Holdings Inc, for about $520 million - a deal that will give GE Energy technology entry into the $20 billion power conversion space.

Plano, Texas-based Lineage Power, a former subsidiary of Tyco Electronics, is a provider of high-efficiency power conversion infrastructure technology and services for the telecommunications and data centre industries. 

Lineage Power, a unit of private-equity firm Gores Group, has nearly a century old heritage of innovation to Bell Labs and Western Electric. It delivers intelligent power conversion solutions for cloud computing and mobile internet infrastructure with energy-efficient AC-DC power supplies, DC-DC circuit board mounted power modules, telecom energy systems, DC data centres and custom power products in over 25 locations worldwide. 

With 2010 revenues of $450 million, its customers include leading US telecom service providers, such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Verizon, and leading global OEMs, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Hewlett Packard, Huawei, Juniper Networks and Oracle. 

Lineage Power has around 2,300 employees with manufacturing operations in China, Mexico and India.

The transaction is valued at approximately $520 million or eight times enterprise value on 2011 EBITDA basis.