The Rise of Prysmian Group: How Acquisitions Built an Energy Transition Leader

From Pirelli Cables to Prysmian

Prysmian dates its own history to 1879, when Società Pirelli Cavi was established in Italy¹. For more than a century, Pirelli’s cables operation was one of Europe’s principal manufacturers, building submarine telegraph lines in the late nineteenth century and moving into power transmission cables through the twentieth.

The break came on 1 June 2005, when Pirelli & C. agreed to sell its Energy and Telecom Cables and Systems activities to Goldman Sachs Capital Partners at an enterprise value of €1.3 billion². The business was substantial in its own right, with 2004 sales of €3,208 million, 12,000 employees and 52 plants worldwide. Pirelli did not exit cleanly: it part-financed the sale with a €135 million vendor loan and kept a warrant over up to 5% of any value uplift Goldman generated, so it retained some exposure to how the cables business performed after selling it. The transaction closed in July 2005 and the business was renamed Prysmian³.

The listing followed two years later. On 28 April 2007 the selling shareholder, Prysmian (Lux) II S.à r.l., set the offer price at €15 per ordinary share, valuing the company at €2,700 million⁴. Shares began trading on the Borsa Italiana on 3 May 2007. The global offering of 72,000,000 shares was oversubscribed roughly four times, drawing applications for 278,756,062 shares, and a further 10,800,000 shares were placed through the over-allotment option, taking the total to 82,800,000⁵.

The €1.052 billion of net IPO proceeds went to the selling shareholder, Prysmian (Lux) II S.à r.l., rather than to Prysmian itself⁴. The 2007 offering was therefore a partial secondary sell-down, not a capital raise for the company. Nor did it transfer control: at €15 per share the €2,700 million valuation implies roughly 180 million shares outstanding, so the 82,800,000 placed left the selling vehicle with about 54%⁴⁵. What the listing gave Prysmian was a publicly traded share currency and access to capital markets, which is what the Draka and General Cable transactions would go on to require.

Prysmian’s Acquisition Timeline

Six transactions since the 2007 listing built the group as it stands: Draka, General Cable, Encore Wire, Channell, Xtera and ACSM¹. Five have completed. The Xtera acquisition was announced in December 2025 subject to regulatory approvals, and Prysmian has not publicly confirmed completion as of 26 July 2026⁶. Each expanded the group’s geographic footprint, product range or position in the value chain. As of the 2026 press kit, Prysmian reported 109 plants across more than 50 countries, around 34,000 employees and 30 R&D centres¹.

Sources: Prysmian press releases as cited in each section below. Status as at 26 July 2026.

Source: Green Stocks Research compilation from Prysmian press releases, press kit and results statements.

Draka (2011): Becoming a Fibre Optic Powerhouse

Prysmian’s first transformative acquisition was a takeover offer of approximately €840 million for Draka Holding, the Netherlands-based manufacturer then ranked fourth globally in cables and optical fibre⁸. The offer was launched on 5 January 2011 and declared unconditional on 8 February 2011, with 90.4% of Draka’s ordinary shares tendered during the offer period and settlement on 22 February⁹. A post-closing acceptance period lifted acceptances to 99.02%, with settlement for those shares on 8 March 2011¹⁰. Prysmian funded the approximately €840 million acquisition with a mix of cash and newly issued shares, demonstrating the practical value of its public listing as an acquisition currency. The offer valued Draka at €17.20 per share, a 37% premium to its six-month weighted average price⁸.

Draka brought depth in telecommunications cable, fibre optics and specialty cables for oil and gas, elevators and industrial applications. At announcement the combined group was described as having annual revenues of approximately €5.8 billion and over 20,000 employees across more than 50 countries⁸.

At the time of the offer, Prysmian projected annual operating cost synergies above €100 million within three years of closing⁸. The deal also removed a significant European competitor, consolidating Prysmian’s position as the world’s largest cable manufacturer, a position it has held since.

General Cable (2018): The North American Breakthrough

On 4 December 2017, Prysmian announced a definitive agreement to acquire General Cable Corporation, a Kentucky-headquartered manufacturer with substantial North American operations, for $30.00 per share in cash¹¹. The transaction was valued at approximately $3 billion including debt, an 81% premium to General Cable’s closing price on 14 July 2017.

The deal closed in June 2018, bringing General Cable’s copper, aluminium and fibre optic manufacturing network into the group¹¹. On a full-year combined basis, General Cable represented €3.536 billion of €11.524 billion FY2018 sales and €197 million of €767 million adjusted EBITDA, a 5.6% margin versus Prysmian’s 7.1%. Combined adjusted EBITDA fell from €940 million in 2017, although the 2018 result included €165 million of WesternLink project provisions¹². The lasting effect was structural: General Cable materially expanded Prysmian’s North American manufacturing footprint and product range. Later acquisitions continued that North American build-out, with Encore Wire adding electrical building wire and Channell adding connectivity hardware to Digital Solutions.

At announcement, Prysmian expected run-rate pre-tax cost synergies of approximately €150 million within five years, against one-off integration costs of around €220 million¹¹.

The Organisational Pivot: Segments Built Around the Energy Transition

In December 2023, Prysmian announced a reorganisation under incoming CEO Massimo Battaini¹³. From 1 January 2024 the company reported through four business segments aligned to the energy transition and digital infrastructure, Transmission, Power Grid, Electrification and Digital Solutions, while retaining a regional organisation alongside them. By 2026 the group reported Electrification through two sub-lines, Industrial & Construction and Specialties¹⁴.

Segment revenues as reported for FY2025. Green Stocks Research chart.

The change was more than presentational. Each of the four segments received dedicated leadership¹³. The subsequent transactions can be read through that structure: Encore Wire strengthened Electrification; Channell was explicitly added to Digital Solutions; and ACSM, together with the proposed Xtera transaction, strengthens Transmission. Read alongside the deal record, the later mix paired large-scale expansion with more targeted capability additions, although Prysmian has not announced a comparable acquisition for Power Grid.

Encore Wire (2024): Doubling Down on North American Electrification

On 15 April 2024, Prysmian announced its largest acquisition to date, a merger agreement to acquire Encore Wire Corporation for $290.00 per share in cash, implying an enterprise value of approximately €3.9 billion¹⁵. The transaction valued Encore Wire at roughly 8.2 times its 2023 EBITDA, or 6.3 times including the synergies assumed at announcement.

Encore Wire, founded in 1989 and headquartered in McKinney, Texas, was a pure-play manufacturer of electrical building wire with $2.6 billion in FY2023 net sales and a 20% EBITDA margin¹⁵. Its single-site, vertically integrated campus in McKinney, Texas, spanning 460 acres with over three million square feet under roof, was among the most efficient wire manufacturing operations in North America¹⁶.

The rationale rested on three points. It raised Prysmian’s North American exposure from roughly 30% to 40% of group revenues at the time of announcement¹⁵. Encore Wire’s building wire range, serving industrial, commercial, residential, renewables, healthcare and data centre customers, filled a gap in the Electrification segment. And Prysmian identified approximately €140 million of run-rate pre-tax annual EBITDA synergies within four years of closing.

The transaction was financed with €1.1 billion of balance sheet cash and €3.4 billion of committed debt facilities¹⁵. It completed in July 2024, with Encore Wire fully consolidated from 1 July 2024¹⁷.

Channell (2025): The Digital Solutions Expansion

On 25 March 2025, Prysmian agreed to acquire Channell Commercial Corporation for total consideration of $950 million, plus an earn-out of up to $200 million tied to 2025 EBITDA¹⁸. The headline consideration represented a multiple of less than 8.0 times FY2024 EBITDA.

Channell, founded in 1922 and headquartered in Rockwall, Texas, was a connectivity solutions provider with just under 1,000 employees and three manufacturing sites across Texas, Nevada and California¹⁸. Its range of vaults, thermoplastic and metal enclosures, fibre optic products and copper connectors served telecommunications, broadband, utility and power customers.

This was the first major Digital Solutions acquisition and it marked a shift in what Prysmian was buying: not cable capacity, but the hardware that surrounds and protects a network. Channell was fully consolidated from 1 June 2025⁷. Its contribution is visible in segment reporting, with Digital Solutions adjusted EBITDA of €88 million in Q1 2026 against €42 million in Q1 2025, and a margin of 20.6% against 13.2%¹⁴.

Xtera (proposed, announced 2025): Subsea Telecom Systems

On 29 December 2025, Prysmian announced an agreement to acquire Xtera Topco Limited, a UK and US-based specialist in turnkey submarine telecom systems, through a joint venture with Fincantieri in which Prysmian would hold 80% and Fincantieri 20%⁶. The transaction implied an enterprise value of $65 million and was stated to be subject to regulatory approvals, with completion expected in the first quarter of 2026. Prysmian has not published a completion announcement as of 26 July 2026. Xtera was described at announcement as having approximately €130 million of revenues and around 60 employees.

The proposed Xtera transaction is the smallest on the list by value and the easiest to overlook, but it is strategically consistent: it pairs submarine telecom systems capability with Prysmian’s existing subsea cable manufacturing, and it does so alongside a shipbuilding partner. Prysmian’s FY2025 results statement grouped Xtera with ACSM as agreements that would strengthen the Transmission business⁷.

ACSM (2026): Bringing Installation In-House

On 23 January 2026, Prysmian announced the acquisition of ACSM, a specialist in submarine cable installation, route planning and seabed preparation¹⁹. Prysmian put the transaction value at €169 million, including €24 million of capex for a vessel delivered to ACSM in Q4 2025, a multiple of 6.6 times ACSM’s 2024 EV/EBITDA¹⁹. ACSM, based in Vigo, Spain, had 2024 revenues of €62 million and EBITDA of €22 million, with over 350 employees and three dedicated vessels. The transaction closed on 10 February 2026, with ACSM consolidated from that date²⁰.

Our separate write-up of the transaction is available at Prysmian acquires ACSM.

ACSM is small relative to Encore Wire or General Cable, but it addresses a specific constraint. Subsea transmission projects are won on the ability to deliver a cable and lay it, and installation capacity has been a recurring industry bottleneck. Bringing installation, route planning and seabed preparation in-house reduces reliance on third-party contractors and gives Prysmian more control over project scheduling on a Transmission order book that stood at approximately €17 billion at Q1 2026¹⁴.

The deal was announced in the same period as Prysmian’s contract for the Eastern Green Link 4 (EGL4) interconnector, signed on 2 February 2026. EGL4 is a 2 GW high voltage direct current link between Fife in Scotland and Norfolk in England, awarded by SP Energy Networks’ transmission business and National Grid Electricity Transmission, and described by Prysmian as worth over €2.3 billion²¹.

Where Prysmian Stands Today

By FY2025, Prysmian had grown to €19.7 billion of revenue and €2.4 billion of adjusted EBITDA⁷. Its Transmission backlog stood at about €17 billion at the end of Q1 2026¹⁴, underlining the value of capabilities such as subsea installation and project delivery. The trade-off is a more acquisition-heavy balance sheet: net financial debt was €3.1 billion at year-end 2025⁷ and rose to €3.8 billion at 31 March 2026 following further M&A spending¹⁴.

What the Acquisition Record Shows

Prysmian’s acquisition history shows an evolution from cable-industry consolidation toward a broader solutions and project-delivery platform. Draka and General Cable expanded the core business through complementary product portfolios, manufacturing footprint and geography. Encore Wire continued that industrial logic in North American electrification, adding building-wire scale alongside a distinctive high-service operating model.

The later Channell and ACSM acquisitions added capabilities around the cable itself: connectivity hardware in Digital Solutions, and subsea survey, route-planning and installation services in Transmission. The proposed Xtera transaction follows the same direction in submarine telecom systems. Taken together, these moves extend Prysmian beyond cable manufacture, although they do not represent an acquisition programme across all four segments: Power Grid has had no comparable recent deal.

For investors, the attraction is a business spanning several important parts of electrification infrastructure, from high-voltage subsea connections and grid cables to building wire and network hardware. The counterweight is execution: acquisitions bring integration, financing and delivery risk, especially where Prysmian is moving into services and systems rather than simply adding cable capacity.