Stonepeak to buy Intrado’s emergency telecom unit

Stonepeak said on Friday it would buy Intrado’s emergency call-routing services unit in a $2.4-billion deal, as the alternative investment firm ramps up its bets on the telecom sector.

Intrado, owned by Apollo Global Management Inc, is a technology services company with operations in the United States, Canada, the Middle East and other regions. Its telecoms unit provides 911 call-routing services and a network for data sharing among critical public emergency websites.

This year’s rout in equities and a drop in stock valuations has offered private equity firms an opportunity to buy companies cheap. PE firms have been the key drivers of global dealmaking in the first half of the year amid an overall slowdown in mergers and acquisitions due to adverse market conditions.

Stonpeak, which manages $51.7 billion in assets, last year agreed to buy telecom firm Lumen Technologies’ Latin American business for $2.7 billion. In 2020, it also bought regional cable TV and internet company Astound Broadband for $8.1 billion.

The Intrado unit deal is expected to close in the first half of 2023, Stonepeak said. Reuters