Distributel’s TNW buy part of wider expansion plans: CEO

Distributel Communications Ltd. is acquiring “selected assets” of a numbered company owned by Investel Capital Corp., previously known as Téliphone Navigata-Westel Communications Inc., in a move that CEO Matt Stein said was part of Distributel’s larger consolidation efforts. “It is an extremely broad network. It encompasses one of the broadest footprints in the country, and when merged together with our already extremely broad CLEC footprint, dramatically increases the number of places in Canada we can serve,” Stein said in a phone interview Wednesday. The acquisition involves a national high-capacity backbone, a microwave network throughout British Columbia, and about 100 points of presence, he said. He added the deal is “critical because it vaults us into a number of very important enterprise accounts, whom we’re now able to service with the existing Navigata services they’re used to buying, as well as bringing the broader suite of Distributel services to them as well.” Stein said the deal involves “thousands” of enterprise customers, though he declined to offer details about the purchase price and the size of the new acquisition compared to Distributel’s existing business. The division purchased by Distributel — Téliphone Navigata-Westel Communications — had filed for bankruptcy. It was also involved in a dispute with Telus Corp. Post-acquisition, the assets purchased by Distributel will operate as a subsidiary called Navigata Communications Limited, the company said in a Wednesday press release. Most of the staff are in the Vancouver area, though some are in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal, Stein noted. The acquisition is part of a wider effort toward consolidation the company began a year ago, when it acquired Yak Communications, Stein explained. “It is a major expansion of our team in B.C. While we do have people in B.C. and have for some time, this dramatically increases that number,” Stein said, though he declined to share specifics of how big that team is. “And it’s something that we are continuing on. There are a lot of emerging consolidation opportunities in our market and we’re strategically taking advantage of them,” he said. Stein said he aims to see Distributel become “the largest alternative telecommunications company in the country.” “For some time, we’ve been one of the largest, and we know we that we have built a great platform to be much larger even than we are today,” he said. “And as we get ready for some of the other changes that are coming in our industry, we see this as an ideal time to ramp up our consolidation efforts … in a new way in addition to the traditional organic growth that we’ve been enjoying for years.” CORRECTION: A statement about why Téliphone Navigata-Westel Communications filed for bankruptcy has been removed from a previous version of this story. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Bryson Masse at bmasse@thewirereport.ca

Distributel’s TNW buy part of wider expansion plans: CEO

News | October 11, 2017

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Distributel’s TNW buy part of wider expansion plans: CEO

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