CSG Buys Volubill Assets

After weeks of speculation about its future, policy and charging systems specialist Volubill has found a buyer in CSG, which has paid an unspecified sum for the Service Provider Information Technology (SPIT) vendor. (See Volubill on Brink of Being Acquired.)

Light Reading first heard that Volubill was close to a deal in early November: It turned out Volubill needed a deal as it was struggling financially. (See Volubill on Brink of Being Acquired and Volubill Update: Distressed Asset.)

So what does CSG Systems International Inc. (Nasdaq: CSGS) see in Volubill? Well, the addition of policy and charging capabilities to CSG's existing billing and revenue management systems makes sense and provides a broader base of potential users of Volubill's technology (CSG has more than 500 communications service provider customers, Volubill about 70).

"I'm confident CSG can take this forward -- it has the scale and credibility," says John Aalbers, the CEO of Volubill who will join CSG for about three to six months to help with the integration process.

Aalbers says about 55 Volubill staff will join CSG from the company's Danish and US operations (the problem child in the Volubill portfolio was the legacy French assets that recently went into liquidation).

So what's next for Aalbers? "I'll help get everything settled in at CSG and then I'm going surfing," he joked.

— Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading