Syniverse divests Mach assets to Starhome

Mobile solutions and services provider Syniverse has agreed tosell,almost in its entirety, Mach’s data clearing and Near Real-Time Roaming Data Exchange (NRTRDE) business within the European Economic Area.

One of the conditions of the European Commission’s approval of Syniverse’s $707m acquisition of clearing house Mach was the sale of those assets in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway (the EEA) to another entity.

The acquired business is a “completely functional, independent entity”, according to Starhome, comprising 76 mobile network operator customers, a management team, employees, a service platform in Europe, and an R&D and operations centre in India.

Starhome and its new acquisition will operate as separate businesses through to the end of 2013 but a converged roadmap will be developed for 2014 and beyond, the roaming solutions provider said.

“Acquiring the Mach divestment business is a strategic growth step for Starhome,” said Tal Meirzon, CEO of Starhome. “This move will enable us to grow in new directions and to better assist our customers with their multi-network challenges and competitive strategies. We plan to leverage the synergies between Starhome’s network solutions and footprint of over 200 mobile network operators worldwide with MACH’s IT services and technologies to create an end-to-end solutions and services portfolio, while bringing enhanced value to our customer base.”

He added that evolving technologies in the telecom space, such as LTE, wifi offload and M2M, place considerable demands on the industry, creating a complex multi-network environment.

“Starhome’s vision is to be a global service provider of cloud-based solutions to optimise multi-network mobility in both the roaming and domestic markets. Joining together the expertise of our two companies is a significant step toward this goal,” Meirzon concluded.

The sale of the assets is conditional upon approval of the buyer by the European Commission and other applicable jurisdictions.