Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: BICS closes Telesign acquisition; Orange takes to the high seas with BlueTide; du Plessis takes the BT hotseat.
Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: BICS closes Telesign acquisition; Orange takes to the high seas with BlueTide; du Plessis in the BT hotseat.
Imagination Technologies Group plc , the UK chip designer that was rocked earlier this year by Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) 's decision to drop it as a supplier, has had its proposed sale to China-backed Canyon Bridge approved by shareholders. As Reuters reports, the takeover was approved despite the fact that Canyon Bridge's founder, Benjamin Chow, was charged in the US on Monday with insider trading in a case related to Canyon Bridge's failed bid to buy Lattice Semiconductor in the US. (See Eurobites: Imagination Cashes In Its Chips With Canyon Bridge for £550M and Eurobites: Imagination Rocked by Apple Shut-Out.)
In Belgium, Proximus subsidiary BICS has closed its $230 million acquisition of Telesign, described by Proximus as a "communication-platform-as-a-service" (CPaaS) company. Telesign will continue using its existing brand name, and Aled Miles remains in place as CEO. Daniel Kurgan, the CEO of BICS, told Light Reading last month that he hopes the acquisition will enable him to offset a sales decline at his core wholesale business through the launch of new digital offerings. (See Why TeleSign takeover could be game-changer for BICS.)
Orange Business Services has joined forces with maritime specialist BlueTide Communications, with OBS providing BlueTide with managed global Ku band VSAT broadband satellite capacity. Thanks to the collaboration, BlueTide will be able to provide vessels with live video surveillance, cybersecurity and systems monitoring delivered over the Orange network. The collaboration also paves the way for a move towards IoT-connected "smart" ships, enabling the remote monitoring of the ship's mechanical components, for example.
Today marks the first day of Jan du Plessis's reign as chairman of BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA). As Bloomberg reports, the arrival of du Plessis, from mining giant Rio Tinto, comes at what is a crucial time for the UK incumbent, with BT shares down in the doldrums and work to do at its semi-autonomous Openreach network access division. Du Plessis replaces Sir Mike Rake, who is retiring after ten years as chairman.
— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
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