Customer-care and billing solutions provider CSG Systems International Inc. announced it’s selling its Global Software & Services Division assets to Comverse Inc. for $251 million in cash.
Comverse Inc. is a division of Comverse Technology Inc., a multimedia software and network-based communications services company.
CSG said its GSS division includes the Kenan FX software and services portfolio, which supports more than 150 customers worldwide, as well as the ISMS customer care and billing assets acquired from IBM in 2002. For the six months ended June 30, GSS said the related assets to be acquired generated revenues of about $83.6 million.
“This decision is part of a larger strategic-planning process that the board and this management team started several months ago,” said Ed Nafus, chief executive and president of CSG Systems International. “The divestiture of the GSS Division will allow CSG to intensify its focus on our core competencies in the cable and DBS markets. This will allow us to continue to provide scalable and dependable solutions that will enable our customers to grow and transform their businesses, in addition to providing superior customer service. We believe that the video industry is beginning to transform their business models from providing content over their network to one device, to providing content, anytime, to any device. I believe we are in a unique position to enable this transformation.”
“The combination of the GSS Division with Comverse will strengthen Comverse’s leadership position in the emerging converged billing software market, and will create synergistic cross-selling opportunities into the respective GSS and Comverse customer bases,” said Kobi Alexander, chairman and chief executive of Comverse Technology.
“We believe the emerging converged billing market is approaching an inflection point, and that a significant growth opportunity is at hand. Converged billing is expected to be a fast growing and ultimately one of the largest segments of the overall billing market. This combination is expected to enhance our leadership position as a supplier of converged billing solutions, and additionally will open up cross-selling growth opportunities for data, messaging, content and billing solutions into our respective customer bases.”
The transaction is expected to close by the end of January 2006 pending government agency approvals and other certain closing conditions.
