Alexandre Pébereau’s Tofane Global has completed the acquisition of the international carrier unit of Portuguese operator NOS.
Last night’s completion of the takeover adds €141 million of revenues to Tofane, which already includes iBASIS, bought from KPN last year, and the international wholesale division of French operator Altice.
“Our pace completing the NOS ICS [international carrier services] acquisition illustrates two key developments,” said Pébereau, who is CEO of iBASIS, the business name for the whole operation.
With the deal, six former NOS ICS staff will join iBasis’s existing employees in Portugal (see picture).
“First, our carve-out model is gaining traction, with our position in both global traffic and revenues continuing to rise and exceeding all expectations. Second, we can witness the performance and value-add our customers are achieving through the 18-month consolidation course of our acquisition journey – which in turn, further accelerates interest in our business model.”
Pébereau announced the deal to buy NOS International Carrier Services exclusively to Capacity in April. The operation has customers in Portugal, Brazil and Angola, plus Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, East Timor, the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Macau and the Central African island country of São Tomé and Príncipe.
iBASIS will service NOS’s 130 SMS and 80 voice customers, adding over 2 billion minutes annually to its international voice traffic, said the company. “The transaction also reflects iBASIS’s strong development on mobile services, which now represent a third of its total activity.”
Manuel Ramalho Eanes, the NOS executive board member who signed the deal with Pébereau at the beginning of April, said yesterday: “Today marks a new step in NOS’s growth path. While we achieve more efficient and economical voice and mobile international operations, NOS is able to focus and grow its core business.”
He added: “We will extract the highest value from Tier 1 access and economies of scale while also maintaining independence vis-a-vis larger players. We look forward to our partnership with iBASIS in the coming years as we continue to drive quality, performance, new services, and innovation.”
In April Pébereau told Capacity: “Plans for NOS International Carrier under iBASIS’s control “are very comparable to what we did with KPN and SFR. The acquisition of iBASIS from KPN followed the purchase of Altice International Wholesale (AIW) from the group that owns mobile operator SFR – though both deals were announced within days in March 2018.
Left to right in the picture: Hugo Soares (formerly NOS ICS), Manuela Simões (iBASIS), Jose Ortiz (NOS ICS), Frédéric Missotten (wholesale director from NOS), Nicolas Barret (iBASIS), Ricardo Martins (NOS ICS), Miguel Paiva (iBASIS), Serap Unlu (NOS ICS), Maximilien Brett (NOS ICS) and Isabel Antão (iBASIS).
