Mar, 2002 : Level 3 Completes Acquisition of CorpSoft

📅 March 15, 2002 - Level 3 Communications, Inc. (level3.com) announcedyesterday that it has closed the acquisition of CorpSoft, Inc.(corpsoft.com), a distributor, marketer and reseller of business software, which conducts its business under the name Corporate Software.

Level 3 paid $89 million in cash to acquire Corporate Software, which hadnet debt of approximately $31 million at closing time. The privately heldcompany had 2001 revenues of approximately $1.1 billion and 2001 EBITDA ofapproximately $18 million, excluding stock-based compensation expense,one-time restructuring charges and other non-recurring employee costs.
Based in Norwood, Mass., Corporate Software provides software marketing,procurement and license management. It is a key distributor of softwareproducts from Microsoft, IBM/Lotus, Novell, Sun Microsystems, ComputerAssociates, Symantec and 200 other software publishers, serving more than5,000 business customers in 128 countries.
"This transaction positions Level 3 to take advantage of a shift in theinformation technology marketplace which we have identified as fundamentalto our company's success," said James Q. Crowe, CEO of Level 3. "Fordecades, the IT industry has been shaped by data processing and data storageprice-performance improvement rates that have been nothing short ofastounding and communications costs that have, until recently, improved atfar slower rates. As a result, enterprises have generally located computingand storage resources at the point of use, even though many IT professionalshave pointed out the benefits of making software functionality and datastorage available as a commercial service accessed remotely over broadbandnetworks," Crowe continued.
"Our goal is to make the purchase of software services over the Level 3network as simple and reliable as buying voice services is today," saidCrowe. "Level 3's integration of Corporate Software will be focused on threeareas: the potential distribution of software and software functionalityover Level 3's broadband network; the expansion of Structure's business byleveraging Corporate Software's customer base; and cost savingsopportunities including utilizing Corporate Software's expertise to manageLevel 3's IT expense," said Crowe.
Corporate Software, which employs approximately 800 people worldwide, willcontinue to be headquartered in Norwood. The company's existing managementteam will remain in place.