Vonage Speculation
I was at a dinner last night hosted by the wonderful people at Outcast Communications (Thanks Caryn!) and met a journalist with Barrons who, upon discovering that I was a VoIP blogger, immediately wanted to know... you guessed it! Who is going to buy Vonage?
It seems that everyone wants in on the game now. Gee, it was kind of fun three months ago when Bryan Richard at VoIP Magazine and I started talking about this, but enough already! Just sell the darn thing! I imagine that they have received offers... perhaps they just aren't being offered enough (or enough in their minds). At times like this it is important to remember Pointcast... remember back to 1998 when they pulled their IPO and then didn't sell out to Rupert Murdoch, BellSouth ... and others... a list of potential acquirers that sounds a lot like the ones being whispered as interested in a Vonage acquisition.
Will history repeat itself?
1 Comments:
Well, I hope there are no parallels with Pointcast, which rejected Murdoch's $450 million buyout offer -- real money, back in the day -- and then promptly showed itself to be stuck in an intellectual and technological dead-end.
One huge factor in Vonage's future is the presence of the biggest investor as CEO -- Jeff Citron. That could make it harder to handicap the race, or easier. If you figure he's just out for a big payday, Vonage will be sold soon to whoever comes up with the right number. But I think Jeff is looking for a different sort of payoff: He feels like he just missed being a major force in the financial services industry (because of his SEC troubles), and sees Vonage as a second chance to make a difference in the world and get some recognition for it. So whichever way Vonage goes -- acquisition or IPO it will probably be important for Citron to have a major role in its future.
My two cents, anyway.
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