Workforce Productivity Feature Article

Enterprise customer contact solutions provider Aspect Communications Corporation today announced that its shareholders at their special meeting yesterday approved the terms and conditions of the proposed merger of Aspect with a wholly owned subsidiary of Concerto Software Inc.

Concerto, a provider of products and services for enabling in-house and outsourced business processes, and Aspect announced in July that an agreement had been entered between the two major companies for Concerto to acquire Aspect for $11.60 per share of Aspect Common Stock and an equivalent amount per share of Aspect Series B Convertible Preferred Stock on an as-converted basis. Consummation of the merger now remains subject to other customary closing conditions and is currently expected to be completed imminently.

The deal is valued at approximately $1 billion. According to Aspect, the transaction will form the largest company solely focused on contact center products and services. The deal was previously approved by Aspects board of directors. The new company, no longer publicly traded, will be privately held by Concertos investors, Golden Gate Capital, Oak Investment Partners and management.

The combined company takes on the Aspect name.

Concerto CEO James Foy continues to be the CEO and president of the combined company, while Aspect CEO Gary Barnett stays on board as CTO and executive vice president of Worldwide Support Services.

In an exclusive interview with Foy in Augusts Customer Interaction Solutions magazine, Foy described the combined entity as the worlds largest company completely dedicated to the contact center. We have no distractions, he told CIS editors. None of the wannabes in the industry can even begin to measure up now to the range of solution portfolio we have.

[What our customers] get is a much more complete solution to the contact center problem they face, which is evolving and becoming more difficult every day, he said. They get more of the solution now from Concerto.

Regarding the possibility of future acquisitions, Foy told editors that Aspect may or may not be the last in this recent buying spree: Never say never. Im not ruling it out. This is a very significant acquisition. Were doubling the size of the company and it will take us a while to digest this.

-----

David R. Butcher is Assistant Editor of Customer Interaction Solutions. To see more articles by David Butcher, visit his archive.