Xura is taking aim at every layer of the mobile network infrastructure stack with twin acquisitions of Mitel Mobile and Ranzure. Xura itself was bought and taken private by Siris Capital earlier this year for $643M, and Siris clearly sees it as a consolidation platform for 5G technologies.
Mitel Mobile is for the most part what used to be called Mavenir, which Mitel bought just a year and a half ago for $560M. The Mitel division specializes in software for VoLTE, VoWiFi, RCS and other key nextgen voice technologies. Apparently it wasn’t a perfect fit for Mitel’s plan going forward given the quick turnaround, and they are looking to refocus on the UCC enterprise market while using the proceeds to pay down their credit facility and reduce leverage from 3.3x to 1.8x. They’ve also announced a share buyback plan in parallel.
Meanwhile Ranzure has been focused on cloud radion access network technology, also known as C-RAN and expected by many to be the underlying framework for scaling 5G deployments. Ranzure licenses Mitel Mobile technology as part of its its Evolved Packet Core technology.
Pardeep Kohli, CEO and co-Founder of Ranzure and not-so-coincidentally former CEO of Mavenir, has been named CEO of Xura. Mitel Mobile’s President BG Kumar will join the Xura management team, and former AT&T CTO Krish Prabhu will be joining the company’s board of directors.
The combined company will be based in Dallas, Texas. For the Mitel part of the deal, Xura will pay $350M in cash, a $35M interest-free promissory note, and give Mitel an equity interest. The deal is expected to close in Q1 of 2017.
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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Software · VoIP · Wireless
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So Mitel pays $560M and sells it for $350M? Good deal.
Bet they use proceeds to buy SHOR