EAS Group, the privately held parent of Excel Switching Corporation, agreed to acquire Brooktrout for $173 million. Brooktrout stockholders will receive $13.05 in cash for each share of Brooktrout common stock, representing a 38% premium over the closing price of Brooktrout common stock on August 17, 2005.
Excel is a worldwide provider of carrier-class, open services platforms, media gateways and media servers.
Brooktrout specializes in media processing, call control, signal processing, and fax communications. The company is based in Needham, Massachusetts.
The companies said their merger would create a leader in enabling technologies for both traditional and next-generation communications networks, with a broad portfolio of products and solutions to help both service provider and enterprise customers offer new applications and enhanced services.
http://www.xl.com
http://www.brooktrout.com
- In June 2003, Excel Switching Corporation was spun out of Lucent, returning to its roots as an independent supplier of carrier-class, open services platforms for communications networks. The company offers a Converged Services Platform that is used to deliver carrier applications such as RBOC voice mail services, pre-paid calling cards, tandem/international gateway switching, multiparty audio conferencing, media server and advanced directory assistance services. Lucent had acquired Excel Switching in 1999. EAS Group's investors include Oak Investment Partners, TowerBrook Investors, L.P., and Anshutz Investment Company.
- In 2004, Brooktrout acquired SnowShore Networks, a start-up offering a line of media server and media firewall products aimed at service provider applications. Snowshore's media servers are designed to integrate rich content from the Web and distributed network databases into voice services enabling the creation of converged enhanced services. Capabilities include network announcements, auto-attendant, voice messaging, pre-paid calling, integrated voice recognition, IP Centrex, audio/Web conferencing, unified communications.
