mergers

Windstream Grabs Another

November 25, 2009

Windstream follows up its acquisition of CLEC NUVOX with the purchase of an ILEC. Windstream Announces Acquisition of Iowa Telecommunications Services for $261M in cash, $269M in shares and $598M in debt (see Reuters).

In its latest SEC 10Q filing, it states:

"On November 2, 2009, Windstream entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock of NuVox. As discussed under "Pending Transactions" above, Windstream expects to pay approximately $280.0 million in cash and assume $180.0 million in net debt in the first half of 2010 as part of the transaction, which will be financed with existing cash on hand and borrowings available under the Company's revolving line of credit.

Posted in mergers, telco, wireline

Telecom Takeover Tuesday

November 4, 2009

Yesterday was a big day for The Channel. Two separate acquisitions occurred with both takeover companies expressing interest in the Channel of the company being bought.

First, we have GTT buying WBS Connect. WBSC is just a reseller of Transit and Transport with about $28M in revenue. It was bought for about $1.8M in cash and notes plus $600K in stock.

Posted in agents, channel, commissions, economy, mergers, telecommunications, wireline

Equinix Buying S&D

October 22, 2009

Steve Smith, CEO of Equinix, is excited because he just bought Switch and Data. From a letter he sent:

"Today, we announced our intention to acquire Switch and Data in a transaction valued at approximately $689 million of equity value which will further extend our leadership position in North America. The transaction will allow us to serve you as the most comprehensive data center services provider for your global online business needs. </ br> The transaction will include 34 data centers in 22 markets located in the United States and Canada and will extend the company's presence to 16 new markets across North America, including Atlanta, Denver, Miami, Seattle, and Toronto. The acquisition will add more than one million gross square feet of data center capacity, bringing Equinix's total global footprint to 79 data centers in 34 markets and more than six million square feet of capacity across the North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific markets."

Consolidation. Probably a good time for it in this space with all the buzz around Cloud, Virtualization, and the need for secure, reliable, redundant data centers.

Posted in mergers, telecommunications

New Sprint Rumor

September 14, 2009

Engadget has a rumor that Deutsche Telekom is eyeing Sprint Nextel for acquisition. There are a number of issues here:

DT owns T-Mobile.
T-Mobile is GSM and Sprint is iDEN and CDMA. Not much value in mixing that many signaling protocols. No synergy.
FTC and DOJ may not like that much Public Safety being foreign owned.
The cost would be staggering.

By that I mean that DT isn't exactly experiencing huge growth to pay back a multi-billion dollar acquisition of a declining asset.

Posted in cellular, mergers, spectrum

Telesphere Bought UBN

August 26, 2009

Per an FCC Announcement (below) Telesphere has bought Unity Business Network. I knew that they were in talks and I thought after Telesphere's $15M in funding that they would buy UBN up. This was kind of easy since both are Broadsoft based. Ah, finally some consolidation in the VOIP Provider space.

Released: 08/25/2009.

Posted in broadsoft, mergers, voip

Sprint and Virgin Mobile

August 3, 2009

There was a question on LinkedIn today about the MVNO model making a comeback. It seems that Sprint buying Virgin Mobile has sparked a slow news day.

Let's not forget that SK Telecom dropped almost $300M on the Earthlink MVNO formerly known as Helio, which was given to Virgin Mobile last year. SKT was looking for a foot hold in the US market (just like every other international player). If SKT decided to sell its one stake, what chance does the MVNO model have?

As more minutes move to the cellular networks from the wireline network, how does that scale or make financial sense for a virtual operator?

Posted in cellular, mergers, telco

Nortel Being Sold Off

July 27, 2009

For those of you who missed it, Nortel is being sold off in pieces.

"Ericsson announced its interest in Nortel's wireless assets late, but it came home the winner, paying $1.13 billion for Nortel's LTE and legacy CDMA business." [Doug]

The Enterprise unit was sold to rival Avaya for $475M. [Reuters]

Radware had previously purchased Nortel Alteon business.

Having sat in a session with Nortel last week, it can't be fun to work there. Worse, it can't be fun to be a Channel Partner. Any residuals are likely gone.

Posted in agents, channel, mergers

Grande Communications is being Acquired

July 15, 2009

Grande Communications, a Texas-based communications company providing residential and business customers with high-speed Internet, local and long-distance telephone and digital cable services, is being acquired according to a rumor. I don't have any details other than that.

Posted in CLEC, mergers, telecommunications

Global Capacity Maxes Out Capital

July 7, 2009

As per the press release, you would think that the last bunch of transactions had just crippled the accounting firm.

As previously announced in its Form 8-K filings with the SEC, the Company has been delayed in filing financial reports pending completion of its 2008 audit. The Company's change in independent registered public accountants and the complexity of the technical accounting treatment required with respect to the embedded derivatives resulting from the sophisticated financial instruments used in several of the Company's financing transactions were factors in the delay, which has resulted in the suspension of trading from the OTC Bulletin Board. Completion of the audit and filing of financials with the SEC is expected during July, at which point the Company plans to apply for reinstatement of trading of its common stock on the OTC Bulletin Board.

But a document mailed to me today states that Global Capacity, Inc. is experiencing "an unplanned cash constriction".

Posted in agents, channel, mergers, telecommunications

Why Can't DC See What We See

June 26, 2009

I'm not the brightest guy in the world. Yet over and over I see politicians and regulators make decisions that the other 99% of the US knows will be bad news. One such decision: approving the sale of Verizon's New England region to Fairpoint.

For one thing, agents can no longer sell in that region because Fairpoint thinks they can sell better than a telecom agent can. Ha!

Posted in FCC, mergers, politics, wireline

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