Product category:
Stand-Alone Instruments
News Release from: Willtek Communications
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 19 March 2003
Investcorp takes control
The venture capital arm of Investcorp has acquired a majority interest in Willtek Communications from Acterna Corp.
The venture capital arm of Investcorp has acquired a majority interest in Willtek Communications from Acterna Corp Investcorp intends to provide Willtek with additional capital to expand its operations into new geographic markets and to support new product launches
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 21 Nov 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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Until April 2002, Willtek was a subsidiary of US-based Acterna Corp.
In May 2002, the current Willtek management team, lead by CEO Cyrille Damany, undertook a buyout of the company, financed by Willtech, a wireless engineering firm based in Seoul, Korea.
Investcorp's acquisition concludes this staged management buyout and sets Willtek on the right footing to operate as an independent company.
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Willtech and Willtek's management team will remain meaningful shareholders in the company.
Over the past 40 years, Willtek, and it predecessor companies, have developed some of the most successful and innovative wireless testing products, under the Willtek, Wavetek and Chase brand names.
Willtek's customers include some of the largest telecomms manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Siemens and Sagem, as well as network operators such as mmO2, Cingular, T-Mobile and Verizon.
Despite a year of reduced expenditure across the mobile communications industry, Willtek has solid revenues.
The company has a strong order book, having gained new customers in 2002.
As more wireless networks based on the 2.5G and 3G standards are deployed over the coming years, the outlook for Willtek is even stronger, as the company is one of the few test equipment providers capable of providing a full range of test solutions for both 3G protocols.
This has made the company an attractive investment to Investcorp.
Hazem Ben-Gacem, a partner at Investcorp, said: "The performance of Willtek over the course of last year has been very strong despite the tough market conditions.
Willtek is very well placed for strong growth in Asia and from the increasing demand they are seeing from operators planning to upgrade and roll out new networks.
Willtek is a great new addition to our portfolio of companies".
Hazem Ben-Gacem and another senior Investcorp partner, Savio Tung, will join the newly created shareholder's executive board established by Investcorp for its shareholding in Willtek.
In addition, Werner Schmucking will join this executive board in the capacity of Nonexecutive Director.
Schmucking was a member of the group board of Siemens AG Information and Communication Networks (ICN) until 2000 and was President of the German Association of the Electronics Industry (ZVEI) and Vice President of the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM).
Cyrille Damany, CEO of Willtek, said: "Our continued focus on providing our customers with solutions designed to meet their exact business needs with a fast return on investment has paid off.
We are very honoured now to be associated with a company of Investcorp's reputation.
Investcorp's involvement with Willtek gives us the capital we need to complete our plans to take advantage of the market position we have gained.
With Investcorp's backing we now have the ability to create an infrastructure that will bring us closer to our customers.
We will also be able to accelerate our product development to address the test challenges created by the deployment of new wireless technologies".
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