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Verizon sells TSI of Tampa for $800-million
By JEFF HARRINGTON TAMPA -- In a drive to shed nonstrategic businesses, Verizon Communications is selling its Tampa wireless services unit for $800-million to a private equity investment company. GTCR Golder Rauner LLC, a Chicago company with more than $4-billion in equity investments, said its purchase of TSI Telecommunication Services should not affect the local company's employees, mission or headquarters. TSI employs 800, including 750 at its headquarters in Tampa. "We'd like to stay in the area," GTCR principal David Donnini said Monday. "We want to run it very much in the manner it is operated today." TSI's chief service is acting as a go-between when a customer of one wireless company places a call that roams onto another company's network. TSI authenticates the call, prices the call for both companies and settles the transaction. Handling millions of such transactions every day, TSI commands about 60 percent of the market, according to the company. "Use the McDonald's phrase: It's billions and billions served, literally," Donnini said. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2002. Shares in Verizon closed at $48.31, up 45 cents or 1 percent. GTCR said it will honor TSI's long-term sublease with Verizon to occupy four floors and part of two additional floors in the phone company's downtown Tampa tower, 1 Tampa City Center. But it is replacing the Verizon executive who has been running the operation the past year, Michael Hartman, with its own executive, Edward Evans. Evans will leave his post as president and chief operating officer of wireless carrier Dobson Communications. It is unclear if Hartman will remain with the company or what role he might play. For Verizon, the largest phone company in the country, the deal frees up cash to pay off debt in these tight economic times and to reinvest in core businesses such as local phone, long-distance and wireless service. For TSI, it's a chance to spread its wings. As a provider of services to both wireless and land-line phone companies, TSI has had trouble expanding its relationship with some companies because of its direct link to a top competitor: Verizon. "At times (Verizon's ownership) has been a help and at times it's been a hindrance," TSI spokeswoman Helen Harris said. TSI was a relatively small startup when it was bought by the former GTE in 1987. Even before GTE merged with BellAtlantic to create Verizon last year, TSI had grown to dominate its niche, serving 260 wireless companies, including nine of the top 10 providers. The company, with annual revenues of $350-million, has been profitable since its inception, Verizon executives said. Verizon and GTCR declined to release profit figures. GTCR is no stranger to Tampa. It's a founding investor and still the largest shareholder of Global Imaging Systems in Tampa, a publicly traded office equipment reseller. It bought Tampa credit card processor Gensar in 1993 and held it for three years before selling to FirstUSA Paymentech. It also owns Keystone Group Holdings, a funeral home holding company, also in Tampa. The latest Tampa investment is a natural fit, GTCR executives said. "We think of this as a transaction processing company and we do a lot in transaction processing," Donnini said. GTCR's portfolio includes an ATM processing company and a company that processes transactions for various communications companies. -- Jeff Harrington can be reached at harrington@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3407.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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