It must have been very difficult in this market but Cobham pulled it off and sold the commercial components portion of M/A-COM, M/A-COM Technology Solutions (MTS), to John Ocampo for $30 million in cash, $30 million in senior loan notes secured on the MTS assets and $30 million dependent on future revenue in the period 2010 to 2012. John is a very experienced RF/microwave person in the industry having been on the board at Sirenza and started Vari-L many years ago. MTS is exhibiting in the RF/microwave Pavilion at CTIA.

At the time of the acquisition of M/A-COM on May 13, 2008, Cobham said it planned to divest the commercial business segment MTS, as it was not core to the Group's strategy (Excluded from the sale are cash and the freehold of the Walker Building in Lowell, Massachusetts valued at $10 million). MTS recorded revenue of some $275 million and operating profit of less than $10 million.

I think this is a good transaction for MTS and its employees to be purchased by an experienced entrepreneur and leader like John Ocampo. This leaves the original M/A-COM in 5 places (see if you can get all of the correct). Tyco Electronics maintains the private radio group, Cobham has the defense products, Micronetics has the RFID products, John Ocampo has the commercial products and Autoliv has the automotive products!