Connectivity Service Provider Birch Acquires Covista Assets
Connectivity Service Provider Birch Acquires Covista Assets by UCStrategies Staff
Atlanta, Georgia-based Birch Communications announced last week that it will acquire particular assets and the base of customers of fellow company, Chattanooga, Tennessee-based CLEC Covista Communications.
This move emphasizes the rapid speed at which Birch is making acquisitions, and will be the company's 17th acquisition in the telecom and managed services markets since 2006.
Details of the financing or costs of the acquisition have not been disclosed. Covista has customers in 48 states, including business, wholesale and residential clients. Additionally, it has been operational for around 30 years.
The president and CEO of Birch, Vincent Oddo, stated that a large proportion of Covista's customers are based in the southeastern, southwestern and northeastern U.S., and this fits well with the model laid out by Birch, as does Covista's Metaswitch-based facilities network.
Oddo stated: “This acquisition will strengthen the breadth and scope of the Birch IP-Network and will further enhance our hosted PBX, SIP trunking and wholesale service offerings.”
The president and CEO of Covista, Warren Feldman, stated: “We are pleased to know our customers will be receiving the same level of customer care at Birch to which they are accustomed.”
The future of Covista following its acquisition by Birch remains vague.
Birch provides a wide array of connectivity services, including local and long distance voice and broadband Internet access. Furthermore, the company provides access to T1, PRI, SIP turning, mobile voice and a variety of other services, such as IT integration offerings.
The company has been regularly active in M&A over the last six years, and more recently acquired DayStar Communications (October 2012), AstroTel (April 2012) and Cordia U.S. (October 2011). (CY) Link