Warwick Valley Telephone To Acquire Alteva

By Josh Long

Warwick Valley Telephony Company (WVT), a telecom provider operating in parts of New York and New Jersey, on Thursday announced an agreement to acquire nearly all the assets of Philadelphia-based Alteva, LLC, a cloud-based solutions provider and enterprise hosted VoIP provider in a cash and stock deal valued at roughly $17 million.

WVT plans to integrate its CLEC business, USA Datanet, with Altevas operations, enabling the telecommunications provider to exploit growth in the unified communications and hosted applications market for business and enterprise customers.

The telecommunications provider expects the acquisition to increase its consolidated revenues by roughly 30 percent on an annual basis, boost its operating cash flow and save costs thanks to network synergies” and an anticipated increase in its volume of business.

In completing the acquisition of Alteva, we will have executed on the implementation of three key strategies for WVT, namely strengthening our CLEC platform, leveraging our legacy incumbent local exchange carrier (‘ILEC’) business to enhance our competitive position, and improving upon our financial performance by scaling and growing our overall operations,” said Duane W. Albro, president and CEO of WVT. Furthermore, beyond the initial impact from the cash flow accretive acquisition of Alteva, WVT will be well positioned for future growth in its revenues, profitability and market share in one of the communications industry’s fastest growing segments.”

Added Albro: Alteva brings a superior sales and marketing channel with direct and agent sales maintaining national coverage, while USA Datanet has a more extensive family of products and a robust network replete with local and national connectivity, a global backbone, and a full network operation and support centers.”

David Cuthbert, president and CEO Alteva, said the companies complement each other.

Alteva provides enterprise UC services through its strong channel partner model while providing superior customer support,” he added.

WVT expects the transaction to close in the third quarter following regulatory approvals and certain other customary conditions. The company (NASDAQ: WWVY) operates in southern Orange County, New York and portions of central New York and northwestern New Jersey.

Shares of WVT were trading this afternoon at $14.67.