M/A-Com Will Sell Cable Operations to N.Y. Firm

M/A-Com will sell its cable and home communications businesses, including a cable-television scrambling operation in San Diego, to New York-based General Instrument for $220 million, company officials said Wednesday.

The four businesses to be sold generated 24% of M/A-Com’s $844 million in 1985 revenue. General Instrument, which last year reported $794 million in revenue, manufactures electronics products, including equipment for the cable-television industry.

Included in the sale is M/A-Com’s 150-plus-employee video products group in San Diego, which earlier this year developed a cable-television scrambling system used by major cable companies to scramble their satellite signals. M/A-Com has already shipped 90,000 of its Videocipher units, which are made in Puerto Rico.

“We see Videocipher as a great fit with our existing cable products,” General Instrument spokesman Edward Kearney said.

Videocipher, which is controlled by a computer in San Diego, has “great growth potential” because all major U.S. cable-television companies will eventually use the system, Kearney said.

Linkabit, M/A-Com’s largest San Diego operation with about 1,000 employees, is not included in the deal. Linkabit, an electronics manufacturer formed in 1968, was purchased by M/A-Com, which is based in Burlington, Mass., in 1980.

Proceeds from the sale, which is to be completed by Sept. 27, will be used to reduce debt, according to a M/A-Com spokesman.

As part of a continuing restructuring, M/A-Com also has been negotiating the sale of an information systems division that last year generated $100 million in revenue.

In addition to the San Diego Videocipher operation, General Instrument agreed to buy M/A-Com’s coaxial-cable business, a division that produces antennas and electronic products for television earth stations, and an operation that manufactures cable-television converters. Besides San Diego, the operations to be sold are situated in North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico.