The “overwhelming” shareholder vote that took place on Wednesday was greatly attributed to Vodafone Group Plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:VOD)’s majority acquisition of Farmside, which happens to be a rural broadband and satellite arm of small carrier TeamTalk.
It must have ended as quite a disappointing day for the company’s competitor, Spark Networks Inc (NYSEMKT:LOV), which had recently made a lot of efforts to actually acquire TeamTalk fully.
According to some top trusted sources, it was revealed that Vodafone NZ was on its way towards the acquisition of 70 percent of BayCity Communications, which as a matter of fact trades in quite a similar fashion to Farmside, for NZ$10 million in cash.
Vodafone NZ prides itself in having in place a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) deal with Farmside, which according to sources provides the various top rural broadband services, and asides from that it is termed one of the top end resellers of the New Zealand government’s Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI).
It has always employed the satellite, wireless technology and ADSL in making tremendous steps forward in the provision of internet connectivity in the various regional zones and is also said to have in place a contact centre in Timaru each comprising of about 70 members of staff.
Russell Stanners, who as a matter of fact happens to be Vodafone NZ’s Chief Executive Officer in a statement said, “This is an opportunity to deliver better outcomes for rural customers, to increase our presence in the rural broadband market, and to utilize the skill sets of the two complementary companies. The investment by Vodafone in Farmside further deepens the strategic relationship between us and TeamTalk. There are other opportunities for us to partner, for instance sharing fiber including future upgrade and maintenance costs,”
The statement seemed to have been received with great applause among all the concerned parties, investors being one of the groups. The release of this particular news spells out the termination of the acquisition attempts by Spark.
TeamTalk has over the years made major steps towards providing digital mobile radio services and the recent dealing has sparked about high talk with a lot of people curious over what the future brings. That is something that we will have to just wait and see.
