M2 closes acquisition of Commander's SMB business, and takes its data network as well

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 16 June 2009 07:50

IT Industry - Strategy

M2 Telecommunications Group (ASX: MTU) has completed its acquisition of bankrupt Commander Communications' small and medium business telecoms business and added on its One Stream data network business for good measure.

When it announced the initial purchase, for $19m, on 2 June M2 said the deal would add in excess of $100 million per annum in customer revenues from fixed line, mobile and data services together with the widely recognised Commander brand. It also intended to take most Commander employees associated with that business, and the main call centre in Adelaide.

It sais the One Stream business would bring in another $10m in annual revenues and "is a highly complementary addition to the Commander SMB business." According to M2, the One Stream business comes with a business-grade national data network, delivering broadband data services and multi-location virtual private network (VPN) services to business customers Australia-wide. "The OneStream network and its customers are supported by an established team of Commander data network personnel, the majority of whom will be offered continuing employment with M2." the company said.

Commander's channel consists primarily of franchise outlets and M2 CEO, Vaughn Bowen told iTWire when the first deal was announced that these would be retained and re-invigorated. He said that Commander had in excess of 30,000 small business customers taking services and "hundreds of thousands with Commander [telephone] systems serviced or supported in some way by the Commander [channel] network." He added "There is a real opportunity there to sell services to them through a re-invigorated sales channel."

Since Commander was placed into receivership, in August 2008 , receivers McGrathNicol have sold of various parts of the company. Receiver Peter Anderson said when the main deal with M2 was announced that: "This transaction concludes the sale of the core Commander businesses." However a spokeswoman for receivers McGrathNicol confirmed to iTWire that Commander's business servicing enterprise customers remained, along with its network of voice telephony switches, and said that the receivers expected to make an announcement about these in coming weeks.