Proximus Opal, a unit of Belgian telecom service provider Proximus Group, announced it plans to buy an almost 58% stake in cloud communications platform-as-a-service company Route Mobile for 59.22 billion rupees (approximately $721 million).
Per the agreement, the cloud company will pay 1,626.40 rupees per Route Mobile share and Clear Bridge Ventures, an affiliate of some Route Mobile promoters, will buy a minority stake of up to 14.5% in Proximus Opal for about 299.6 million euros (nearly $337 million). Further, according to Indian regulations, Proximus Opal will also have to make an offer to buy an additional stake of up to 26% in Route Mobile at the same price from retail shareholders.
The filing also dictated that Proximus’ stake in Route Mobile may go up to 75%, depending on the outcome of the mandatory takeover offer (MTO). “Total cash consideration for this part of the operation will be determined by the effective MTO take-up,” continued the filing.
Proximus Opal Acquires Majority Stake in India's Route Mobile
Proximus, founded in 1930, is based in Brussels, Belgium. The company has 12,970 employees listed on LinkedIn. Proximus' areas of expertise include telecommunications, internet, telephony, television, ICT, quadruple-play, cloud computing, healthcare, connectivity, entertainment, network, mobility, 4G, fiber, and broadband.
Route Mobile, founded in 2004, is based in Mumbai, India. The company has 525 employees listed on LinkedIn. Route Mobile's areas of expertise include mobile messaging, enterprise messaging, SMS, 2way messaging, mobile engagement, A2P messaging, enterprise messaging platform, SMS hubbing, SMS firewall, voice solutions, API, IVR, OTP passwords, VoIP, chatbots, enterprise email sender, number lookup, CPaaS, omni channel APIs, and digital marketing.
Proximus Opal provides cloud-based telecom platforms for enterprise customers such as Salesforce and TikTok creator Bytedance. The acquisition expands Proximus' reach and paves the way for the company to achieve a billion-dollar annual run rate sooner than the anticipated three-to-four-year timeframe, the company said in a statement.
Rajdip Gupta, Route Mobile’s CEO. Gupta has been selected to lead the combined company.
