Private equity group Carlyle has scooped up mobile roaming and messaging firm Syniverse for $2.6 billion – its second telecom acquisition in two days.
It paid $31.00 per share in cash, a premium of around 35%, to acquire the fast-growing vendor and take it private, Carlyle announced Thursday.
As with its acquisition of fiber cabling firm CommScope two days ago, the investment is a bet on the boom in data, and especially mobile data.
Carlyle, the world's second biggest private equity group, took hold of CommScope two days ago for $3.9 billion – the biggest telecom vendor deal in two years.
Bloomberg.
John Bright, an analyst with Avondale Partners, told Bloomberg that private equity firms were attracted to telecom industry because of the “explosive, accelerating usage of mobile internet devices.”
In its most recent quarter Syniverse increased net income 36% and revenue 40% and raised its guidance, mostly as a result of higher roaming revenues.