Cisco to buy-out Telenor from Working Group Two JV

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Cisco is set to pay Telenor $150 million for its 44.6% in the business 

This week, Cisco has signed a $150 million deal to acquire Norwegian company Working Group Two (WG2) from Telenor Group.  

Core network software specialist WG2 was spun out as a separate entity from Telenor in 2017, with the Norwegian operator retaining a significant stake in the business. At the time, additional investors included telecoms equipment specialist Cisco and digital infrastructure investor Digital Alpha.  

Now, six years later, Telenor is selling its entire 44.6% stake in the business to Cisco, which will become WG2’s sole owner. 

WG2 is a cloud-native mobile service platform provider, which offers mobile operators a cloud-based core network to increase product innovation and reduce time to market through authentication, provisioning, voice, messaging, and data services. 

According to Cisco, the acquisition will help them further develop their recently announced Mobility Services Platform. The Platform combines 5G, edge, and cloud technologies to deliver an as-a-service option for service providers, to help them build and manage new Internet of Things (IoT) networks. 

“Built for simplicity, innovation, and efficiency, WG2’s platform uses the web-scale playbook and operating models, which makes it a natural fit with our Mobility Services Platform,” said Cisco Senior Vice president Masum Mir 

“And with WG2 and the Cisco Mobility Services Platform, we’ll be able to boost our service edge deployment and API first strategy for application development partners, enterprise customers and service provider partners.”  

The acquisition is subject to standard regulatory approval and is set to close in Cisco’s first fiscal quarter of 2024. 

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