Mitel Receives Best Financial Deal of the Year Award

PRLog (Press Release) – Apr 04, 2008 – OTTAWA, Ontario – Mitel® (http://www.mitel.com), the trusted provider of unified communications solutions for the real world, was awarded the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) “Best Financial Deal of the Year” for 2007 at an awards dinner held last night. Mitel received the award for its $729 million merger with US-based Inter-Tel completed on Aug. 16, which created an Ottawa-based, privately held global leader in enterprise communications with annual revenues in excess of $850 million.  

“We are honoured to receive this award that recognizes the important historic and now expanded presence of Mitel in the Ottawa technology community,” said Steve Spooner, Mitel’s chief financial officer. “This award recognizes that we completed our merger with Inter-Tel during one of the worst market conditions to raise debt in two decades, as well as Mitel’s ability to attract top-flight investors and partners to close one of Ottawa’s biggest technology financing deals in over a decade. Post-merger, Mitel has positioned itself to provide superior service and communications solutions to our growing customer base and take on the competition in all markets.”

The transaction was funded by a combination of debt and equity. The debt funding, consisting of $460 million senior secured credit facilities, was arranged by Morgan Stanley on behalf of Mitel. The remaining $294.5 million cash equity contribution was facilitated by Francisco Partners, one of the largest technology-focused investment firms, with participation by Morgan Stanley Private Equity.

Co-founded in 1973 by Terence Matthews, the new Mitel now has a worldwide employee base of approximately 3,100 employees in over 90 countries through a network of over 100 direct offices and over 1,500 value-added resellers and partners. Mitel introduced the first private branch exchange in 1978 and has continued to bring the same spirit of innovation to IP communications for small, medium, and large enterprises worldwide. In addition to Mitel’s global headquarters and enterprise R&D operations in Ottawa, Inter-Tel’s Arizona headquarters has been retained as the center of operations for the combined U.S. business and serves as an important center of R&D excellence for small and medium business solutions.

The OCRI Awards are synonymous with business excellence in the Ottawa region. OCRI is the rallying point to bring business, education and research together to create the winning economic conditions that allow Ottawa's technology companies to thrive locally and compete globally. For more information on OCRI visit www.ocri.ca.