Munich — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Gamma Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons plc (Gamma) on the acqui­si­tion of 80% of the shares in HFO Holding AG (HFO), one of the leading SIP trunk provi­ders in Germany, which also includes the distri­bu­tor Epsi­lon. There is an acqui­si­tion option for the remai­ning 20% for the next three years.

Gamma is a leading provi­der of Unified Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons as a Service (UCaaS) in the UK, Spain and the Nether­lands and has iden­ti­fied Germany as a key target market as part of its expan­sion stra­tegy. Accor­ding to the company, the over­all German market has around 36 million PBX exten­si­ons, but a cloud pene­tra­tion of only around 6%. Thus, the market for cloud tele­phony is expec­ted to grow steadily over the next few years.

Gamma’s goal is to deve­lop and sell a market-leading cloud PBX solu­tion through the chan­nel to acce­le­rate HFO’s growth in the emer­ging cloud PBX market in Germany. HFO also offers B2B mobile services through its subsi­diary Epsi­lon Tele­com — most recently selling over 100,000 connec­tions per year. This also provi­des an oppor­tu­nity for Gamma to sell a mobile cloud PBX product through this channel.

Advi­sor Gamma Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons plc: Bird & Bird LLP
Part­ner Stefan Münch (photo), Part­ner Stephan Kübler, LL.M., Coun­sel Michael Gass­ner, Asso­cia­tes Marcel Nurk and Mari­jana Simo­nova (all Corporate/M&A, Munich), Part­ner Dr. Ralph Panzer, Asso­cia­tes Julia Gottin­ger and Laura Schild­berg (all Labor Law, Munich) Part­ner Dr. Henri­ette Picot, Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg, Asso­ciate Goek­han Kosak (all Tech & Comms, Munich), Part­ner Dr. Markus Körner, Asso­ciate Maxi­mi­lian Hillen­kamp (both Trade­mark Law, Munich), Senior Coun­sel Vale­rian Jenny (Foreign Trade Law, Frank­furt), Part­ner Neil Blun­dell, Part­ner Simon Allport, (both Corporate/M&A) Legal Dirc­tor Nick Heap (Corpo­rate Finance) all London, Asso­ciate Pauline Toet (Corpo­rate, Candi­tate Notary, The Hague).

Bird & Bird has advi­sed Gamma for many years, e.g. in 2014 on the IPO in London or recently on the public offe­ring for VOZTELECOM OIGAA360, S.A. (“VozTe­le­com”). VozTe­le­com is one of the leading provi­ders of cloud PBX solu­ti­ons in Spain and, along with the major fixed and mobile opera­tors, has the largest cloud PBX busi­ness. Neil Blun­dell, Part­ner in London, says: “We are deligh­ted to support Gamma in their expan­sion in Europe. It’s a very exci­ting company and has perfor­med incre­di­bly well since going public. Bird & Bird has a super­bly inte­gra­ted inter­na­tio­nal M&A group, and the teams in the UK, Germany, Spain and the Nether­lands have worked first class to deli­ver these deals. We look forward to conti­nuing to support Gamma on their future jour­neys, both in the UK and internationally.”