Source: ShoreTel Press Release
ShoreTel Inc. (Nasdaq:SHOR), a provider of IP phone systems with fully integrated unified communications (UC), announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire M5 Networks, a provider of hosted Unified Communications.
Under the terms of the definitive agreement, M5 shareholders will receive approximately $84 million in cash and 9.5 million shares of ShoreTel stock, which equates to a total of $146.3 million in initial consideration based on a ShoreTel’s average stock price over the prior 30 trading days. In addition, M5 shareholders may receive additional contingent consideration of up to $13.7 million. The contingent payments are payable over the two years after closing and are based upon the achievement of certain revenue performance milestones for the year ended Dec. 31, 2012.
The acquisition of privately held M5 enables ShoreTel to expand its solutions into the cloud and reach a large and growing market segment of customers that are looking to deploy IP communications through a hosted model.
M5 pioneered hosted UC in 2000 and today provides more than 2,000 companies with enterprise-grade communications on a subscription basis.