More Communications M&A Likely To Follow Avaya

In the wake of the $17.50 a share bid for corporate phone equipment maker Avaya (AV), announced Monday night, Prudential Securities analyst Inder Singh says more buyouts are likely in the corporate communications equipment market, which has seen less M&A activity than has the group of companies making equipment for phone companies.

The $17.50 payout is a 33% premium to Avaya’s average closing price — not bad.

Says Singh:

Consolidation swept through the larger telco equipment vendors last year, but we have seen relatively little consolidation among the enterprise focused names. Although the current AV acquisition does not address the consolidation issue, we wouldn’t be surprised to see more M&A activity in this space.

So who could be next on the list? Well, I’m glad you asked, because I happen to hold in my hands the first quarter report from market research firm Dell’Oro Group for what’s known as Internet Protocol PBX, which is a fancy name for a corporate phone switch. In the first quarter, Avaya was third in market share behind Cisco Systems (CSCO), with Nortel Networks (NT) a distant second to Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) taking fourth place after Avaya, followed by Siemens AG (SI) and NEC (NIPNY). Both Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel could use some help these days, with both seeing declines in market share quarter-over-quarter, in units, ALU dropping 15% and Nortel dropping 6%.

Alcatel-Lucent shares are off 4% this year while Nortel shares are down about 2% for the year.

ALU vs. NT 1-yr chart: