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Blockbuster M&A: Verizon Wheels & Deals, CenturyLink, Avaya
Verizon was the biggest mover and shaker in May and June. The carrier is involved in four of the 12 pieces of M&A news in our latest gallery, which features not only mergers and acquisitions announced in the past two months — but also key updates to those that are in the process of closing.
All have significant impacts on the telecom and IT channels.
Also here you will find the latest on Avaya’s selloffs, as well as a giant tie-up between two of the largest distributors in the business. Click through to see the blockbuster M&A activity you might’ve missed from the past two months.
Looking for more M&A? Click here to see the biggest channel-impacting mergers and acquisitions from April.
Follow associate editor @JamesAndersonCP on Twitter.
Jeff Storey, president and CEO of Level 3 Communications, will become CenturyLink’s president and chief operating officer – and eventually its CEO – after the companies’ merger is final. CenturyLink anticipates gaining the remaining state, federal and international approvals in time to complete its acquisition by Sept. 30.
Learn about CenturyLink's plans for its Level 3 acquisition and what Storey has in mind.
Verizon laid off approximately 2,000 employees when the company officially took over Yahoo. The carrier is eliminating overlapping positions that include marketing, HR and administration. Verizon plans to combine Yahoo’s internet properties with that of AOL, which the carrier bought for $4.4 billion in 2015.
It also won a bidding war with AT&T for the rights to buy Straight Path Communications and the large amount of wireless spectrum that it owns.
Learn more about the Verizon-Yahoo merger and Verizon’s purchase of Straight Path.
Charter Communications reportedly rejected a buyout offer by Verizon valued at more than $100 billion.
Verizon made the buyout offer in recent months, according to the New York Post. The cableco turned down the telco’s bid because it was too low — and Charter and its largest shareholder, Liberty Media, weren’t ready to sell, it said.
Check out the rumors surrounding Charter and Verizon.
Extreme Networks became the winning bidder to acquire Avaya’s networking business for about $100 million. Avaya filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. It entered into an asset purchase agreement with Extreme for the networking business in a section 363 sale under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Read why Extreme Networks is buying the unit.
Distributor Synnex Corp. announced a definitive agreement to acquire fellow distributor Westcon-Comstor‘s Americas and Latin America business in a $600 million deal. This includes the U.S., Canada and Latin American markets, as well as a 10 percent international investment in Westcon-Comstor's EMEA and APAC businesses.
Read the our article about the merger and a Q&A on the subject with the CEO of Partner Path.
RapidScale announced plans to buy the hosted infrastructure services portion of Vonage’s business.
Under the terms of the agreement, RapidScale will acquire the employees of this Vonage business unit and the following services: IaaS, hosted exchange, virtual desktop, IT services, hosted firewall, backup and Microsoft Skype for Business.
Get details on why RapidScale chose to acquire the Vonage unit.
In a rumor that pops up every year (or more often), a German publication reported that Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent company, is preparing a plan to merge with the Overland Park, Kansas-based mobile carrier. The rumor said DT wants to maintain control of the combined company after an all-stock deal.
Read more about the rumors surrounding T-Mobile and Sprint.
Rackspace is acquiring TriCore Solutions, a company that offers management of enterprise applications, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) offerings from Oracle and SAP. It will allow Rackspace to provide expertise and support for enterprise applications that companies use to manage core functions such as manufacturing, logistics, procurement, supply-chain management, customer service, HR and financial operations.
Learn more about the Rackspace-TriCore deal.
Genband and Sonus Networks are merging to create a $745 million company focused on next-generation communications networking. The combined company will have increased scale and market reach across products, customers and geographies. Genband and Sonus shareholders will each own about 50 percent of the combined company.
Read our story about the merger.
Equinix’s $3.6 billion purchase of 29 Verizon data centers is complete. Equinix now has 250 former Verizon employees and more than 1,000 additional data center customers in its fold. The company gets data centers in 15 metro areas in the U.S. and Latin America.
Learn more about the transaction.
Private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo announced plans to acquire Continuum, the Boston-based remote monitoring and management (RMM) vendor. Thoma Bravo made the purchase through its Discover Fund. Continuum provides a global IT management platform to about 5,800 managed service providers.
Get the details on Thoma Bravo’s upcoming acquisition.
