Comverse confirms bid for Acision

Comverse’s proposed purchase of Acision, the UK messaging firm, reflects a shift in strategy to digital services, and away from the billing business.

The purchase price consists of about US$135 million in cash, 3.13 million shares of Comverse’s common stock and potential earnout payments of up to US$35 million. In addition, the US vendor will seek to maintain Acision’s existing US$157 million senior credit facility following completion of the transaction.

Acision’s secure mobile messaging business will be added to Comverse’s portfolio, which includes data analytics, secure enterprise application-to-person (A2P) messaging, credit orchestration, two-factor authentication and M2M communications, as well as Rich Communication Services (RCS), WebRTC and APIs for service creation.

Back in April, Comverse offloaded what was termed “a substantial majority” of its business support systems (BSS) assets to Amdocs for US$272 million in cash. That deal is expected to close before the end of September 2015.

Acision’s board approved this week’s transaction that, subject to closing conditions, is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter.

The new company will be led by a team made up of executives from both organisations under the leadership of Comverse’s CEO, Philippe Tartavull. Headquarters will be at Comverse’s base in the US.