UPDATE 2-US-based Viavi to buy UK's Spirent Communications for $1.28 bln
(Adds stock move in paragraph 4)
March 5 (Reuters) - U.S.-based communications equipment firm Viavi Solutions Inc has agreed to buy British telecommunications testing firm Spirent Communications for about 1.01 billion pounds ($1.28 billion), the companies said on Tuesday.
As part of the deal, Spirent shareholders will get 175 pence per share, which includes a special dividend of 2.5 pence per Spirent share in place of any final dividend for the year ended Dec. 31, 2023.
The per-share deal value is at a premium of about 61.4% to Spirent's closing price of 108.4 pence on March 4.
Shares of Spirent rocketed as much as 60% to 173.5 pence per share in early trade on Tuesday.
The deal is expected to help Viavi Solutions boost its expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning, security, cloud-native architecture and automation.
As part of the deal, private equity firm Silver Lake will make a long-term investment of $400 million in Viavi Solutions, the companies added.
($1 = 0.7886 pounds) (Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong and Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Eileen Soreng)
