Following the purchase of PAETEC by Windstream (NYSE:WIN, news, filings) which closed earlier this month, there was obviously going to be some musical chair activity amongst the combined pool of executives. At least two from PAETEC’s leadership have shown up in the past few days in new positions before the Christmas holidays start. Arunas Chesonis has resurfaced in a completely different industry, while Clint Heiden is back in the fiber business.
A quick perusal of the website of sidera this morning shows that the company has apparently added Heiden to its management team as President alongside CEO Michael Sicoli and CFO Edward O’Hara. Likely there will be a PR in the works in the next few days to formally announce the move. Heiden had headed Cavalier’s Intellifiber division and then went on to lead PAETEC’s Fiber Services and National Accounts division after PAETEC purchased the company last year. Sidera was rumored to be for sale again over the summer, but nothing ever came of it. This move and other hints lately suggest a more aggressive 2012 is at hand, whether organically or inorganically.
Meanwhile, PAETEC’s longtime CEO Arunas Chesonis has apparently found a new industry in which to make his home. He has been named CEO of Sweetwater Energy up in his home turf of Rochester, NY. While that may sound related to PAETEC’s dabbling in the energy business, this appears to be more about biofuels: turning various agricultural products into sugar and everything you can derive from it. It’s a far cry from telecom and fiber, and with a dozen employees currently it’s a lot smaller than what he may have been used to. A fresh start, I wish him luck.
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And here’s Sidera’s PR announcing Heiden as President: http://newswire.telecomramblings.com/2011/12/sidera-networks-names-clint-heiden-president/
Here’s another former Paetec member resurfacing:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Paychex-Names-New-Vice-bw-1714046832.html?x=0
ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX – News), a leading provider of payroll, human resource, and employee benefits solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, today announced the appointment of Sanjay Hiranandani as the company’s new vice president of information technology operations. The Paychex Board of Directors also appointed him an officer of the company.
Hiranandani joins Paychex with 20 years of technology leadership experience. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and chief technology officer of the former PAETEC Holding Corp., a Fortune 1000 telecommunications company acquired earlier this month by Windstream Corp. (NASDAQ:WIN – News), a leading national provider of advanced network communications.
All looking to improve their metro fiber and other telecommunications infrastructure, this consolidation trend is likely to continue right into 2012, to make for another interesting year for telecom mergers and acquisitions activity.