Keynote, California-headquartered suppliers of telecoms test equipment, have purchased Meucci, Belgian specialists in detecting bypass fraud. The price was not disclosed. You can read the press release here.
Meucci claims to have over 120 ‘active’ customers, making it the market leader in bypass detection. Meucci will become a subsidiary of the Keynote SIGOS division, which was itself created following Keynote’s 2006 purchase of SIGOS, German manufacturers of test call generators. Keynote SIGOS products are currently used by over 350 network operators.
In terms of technology and services, there is a strong overlap between Meucci and Keynote SIGOS, raising the possibility of cost synergies, though the press release states that Meucci customers will continue to be served by the company’s main office in Gent, Belgium. Meucci is the 18th acquisition made by Keynote since 2000. Keynote is owned by Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, suggesting that the purchase of Meucci is part of a deliberate strategy of consolidating supply of telecoms test equipment. According to its website, the Thoma Bravo investment strategy is to build profitable market leaders by curtailing damaging over-competition:
Thoma Bravo has invested in many fragmented, consolidating industry sectors and has particular expertise in application software, infrastructure software and technology enabled services sectors.
