The New York-based carrier has bought WIS Telecom S.p.A. and its subsidiary WIS Telecom S.A. from Libero Acquisition, an investment vehicle majority-owned by Egyptian Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Orascom TMT Investments (OTMTI). OTMTI’s portfolio companies cover telecom infrastructure, cloud computing, digital content and services, technology development and hosting.
“This acquisition will be highly synergistic for us,” said Adrian Shatku, UNIFI’s founder and CEO, “because UNIFI and WIS have similar core businesses, networks, geographic complements and customers, and combining the two will expand our footprint, yield operating cost savings and enable provision of higher quality services to the wholesale voice market. Overall, it will greatly accelerate the growth of our business.”
UNIFI, which provides internal voice traffic and telephony solutions with more than 22 points of presence (PoPs) and over 250 bilateral interconnects, has acquired a company TeleGeography ranks as the 15th largest international carrier worldwide.
Rome-headquartered WIS, previously known as WIND International Services, has established 180 direct interconnections with mobile operators and Tier-1 carriers in 70 countries. UNIFI takes on WIS’s international backbone, which connects voice switches to major telehouses in the US, UK, Hong Kong, Italy, Greece, Germany, France and Belgium. WIS also owns a submarine cable between Italy and Greece.
“This transaction comes as part of our strategy to divest non-core assets and consolidate our operations within our new areas of focus. After the merger with VimpleCom, our business has shifted from voice and mobile communication and related operations to focus on technology and online solutions,” commented Naguib Sawiris on the move.
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to transfer ownership of WIS to a company such as UNIFI who will help WIS achieve its full potential while taking good care of its employees and customers, and I look forward to continuing a strong business relationship with UNIFI and Mr. Shatku in the future.”
At the beginning of the year UNIFI Communications has selected Telarix’s iXLink and iXTools SaaS platform to automate its existing business operations and implement a unified call routing platform.
