Bain Halts 3Com Buyout

Bain Capital, the Boston-based asset management firm co-founded by Mitt Romney, has suspended a joint effort with China’s Huawei Technology to acquire Marlborough, MA-based 3Com for a proposed $2.2 bilion in cash, 3Com reported today. Bain and Huawei withdrew their joint filing with the U.S. government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which has proved unwilling to okay the deal. According to PE Week and other reports, U.S. legislators were concerned about Chinese ownership of 3Com, whose TippingPoint subsidiary makes security software for the government; apparently, Bain, Huawei, and CFIUS were unable to settle on “mitigation” terms under which TippingPoint would be excluded from the merger. “We are very disappointed that we were unable to reach a mitigation agreement with CFIUS for this transaction,” Edgar Masri, 3Com’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/