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primarysourced Photonics sector Lumentum
LITE
~3 min read · 735 words ·updated 2026-04-29 · confidence 100%

Oclaro Inc. acquisition

On December 10, 2018, Lumentum closed its acquisition of Oclaro Inc. (NASDAQ: OCLR), adding a second InP fab (Towcester, United Kingdom), a substantial tunable-laser portfolio, and the customer relationships of one of its three principal Western merchant-InP competitors. Oclaro common stock ceased trading on the close date.

The deal was originally announced March 11, 2018 at a headline transaction value of approximately $1.8 billion in cash and stock (the seed brief’s “$1.7B” is a slight understatement; primary press materials cite $1.8B).

Transaction terms

ElementValueSource
Announcement dateMarch 11, 2018Lumentum announcement
Close dateDecember 10, 2018Lumentum 2018-12-10 release
Per-share consideration$5.60 cash + 0.0636 LITE share for each Oclaro sharePRNewswire
Headline transaction value~$1.8B (cash + stock) at announcementLumentum March 2018 release
Regulatory clearanceChina State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) cleared in late 2018, satisfying the final closing conditionLightwave / China clearance

✓ All values verified-primary.

What Oclaro brought

Oclaro at the time of the deal was the third surviving leg of the Western merchant InP-laser supply base, alongside Lumentum (legacy SDL/Uniphase) and Finisar (later acquired by II-VI / now Coherent Corp). The principal assets transferred were:

AssetDescription
Towcester, UK InP fabA wafer-scale InP fab acquired by Oclaro from Bookham (which itself had absorbed Marconi’s photonics division). One of two operational Western merchant InP fabs at the time.
Tunable-laser portfolioOclaro’s tunable telecom laser products were among the broadest in the industry, particularly for coherent and DWDM applications.
100G CFP2/QSFP28 transceiver productsOclaro had been an early high-volume vendor in the 100G coherent and CWDM4 categories.
Customer relationshipsDirect relationships with major datacom transceiver customers and telecom OEMs (Ciena, Huawei, Nokia/ALU, ZTE) that complemented Lumentum’s own.
R&D / engineering team in the UKThe Towcester engineering center, with photonics design expertise dating back to Marconi/Bookham heritage.

Strategic rationale

Pre-Oclaro, the merchant InP supply landscape was three-handed:

  1. Lumentum (San Jose CA fab, SDL/E-TEK heritage)
  2. Oclaro (Towcester UK fab, Marconi/Bookham heritage)
  3. Finisar (Allen TX, Sunnyvale; partial InP capability complementing GaAs VCSEL and EDFA expertise)

Post-Oclaro, the landscape collapsed to two principals:

  1. Lumentum (San Jose + Towcester)
  2. Finisar (acquired by II-VI Sept 24, 2019; later II-VI rebranded as Coherent Corp following its 2022 Coherent acquisition)

This was a meaningful structural consolidation. It also positioned Lumentum well for the InP-source supply tightness that emerged with the AI capex cycle of 2023–2026.

Integration outcome

Oclaro was integrated into Lumentum’s Cloud & Networking segment (then “Optical Communications”). The Towcester UK fab continues to operate as a primary InP wafer source. Cross-fab capacity allocation between San Jose and Towcester remains a strategic lever Lumentum has used during AI-driven demand spikes.

The 2026 NVIDIA-funded Greensboro NC capacity expansion (announced March/April 2026, per the Greensboro release) is a third InP fab footprint in addition to San Jose and Towcester. The fact that Lumentum chose to add capacity in the US rather than expand Towcester first may reflect (a) US export-control/CHIPS-related incentives and (b) NVIDIA’s preference for US-soil supply for the most advanced 200G/lane EML chips.

Restructuring history post-close

Lumentum executed multiple restructuring waves on the combined business between 2019 and 2024 — closing some smaller R&D / sales offices and consolidating product lines. The fab footprint (San Jose + Towcester) has remained intact. A specific schedule of restructuring charges by year is in the FY2019 through FY2025 10-K filings; the FY2025 10-K (accession 0001628280-25-040830) is the latest authoritative source.

Cross-references

Sources