Birch Communications said this week it will acquire select assets and the customer base of fellow CLEC Covista Communications, a move that marks fast-growing Birch's 17th acquisition in the telecom and managed services markets since 2006.
Financial terms of the deal weren't provided. Covista, based in Chattanooga, Tenn., has been in business for 30 years and has business, wholesale and residential customers in 48 states.
Vincent Oddo, Birch's president and CEO, said the concentration of Covista's customers in the southeastern, southwestern and northeastern U.S. fits well with Birch's footprint, as does Covista's Metaswitch-based facilities network.
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"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," Oddo said in a statement.
"We are pleased to know our customers will be receiving the same level of customer care at Birch to which they are accustomed," Warren Feldman, Covista's president and CEO, said in the statement.
What happens to Covista following the Birch acquisition is unclear. Requests for comment by CRN to Covista weren't returned.
Based in Atlanta, Birch offers a full complement of connectivity services, from local and long distance voice and broadband Internet access to T1, PRI, SIP turning, mobile voice and a range of others, including IT integration services. The company has been consistently active in M&A in the last six years, and its most recent acquisitions were of DayStar Communications in October 2012, AstroTel in April 2012, and Cordia U.S. in October 2011.
PUBLISHED JAN. 3, 2013
