Comverse is to buy a UK-based Acision, a privately-held specialist of mobile communications network infrastructure and messaging and charging systems. Comverse has revealed it’s paid $135m in cash, however the purchase price also consists of 3.13 million shares of Comverse’s common stock and potential earnout payment of up to $35m. The company also will seek to maintain Acision’s existing $157m senior credit facility following completion of the acquisition. The transaction has been approved by the boards and is now expected to close by the end of the third quarter, it says.
Upon the acquisition, the expanded company will be led by a new management team and with the executives from the two board while under the leadership of Comverse’s CEO Philippe Tartavull. US-based Comverse delivers telecommunications software such as converged communications (traditional and IP), digital services, converged BSS and Policy and managed services. For many years the company was part of an Israeli group Comverse Technology.
The combined portfolio of the both companies will deliver a wide array of cloud multi-VAS and IP messaging solutions coupled with mobile monetisation, enterprise messaging and digital services. Also, the new offering will comprise new digital application areas such as data analytics, secure enterprise application-to-person (A2P) messaging, credit orchestration, two-factor authentication and M2M communications, among the others, it says.
“Continued consolidation in the Service Provider space creates the need for strong suppliers. Our acquisition of Acision underscores Comverse’s commitment to quickly building scale and market leadership in the fast-growing digital services sector. The acquisition creates the formidable platform for innovation that is expected to serve our customers’ current and evolving needs. Acision brings a diverse portfolio of mobile monetisation and rich enterprise messaging solutions complementing Comverse’s market leading digital services platform. The combined portfolio will allow us to enable our service provider and enterprise customers to deliver and monetise a new array of advanced digital services to their customers,” says Tartavull.
“The combination of Acision and Comverse creates a market leader in the high growth digital services segment. We are excited about the potential of this acquisition and the resulting value creation for our shareholders,” adds Jorg Mohaupt, Head of TMT at Access Industries, a majority shareholder of Acision.