USTC Corp buys fellow distributor Walker and Associates
USTC Corp, Inc. revealed yesterday that it has acquired fellow distributor Walker and Associates Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Coincidentally, Walker and Associates sponsored a reception at the Fiber Connect event in Nashville, TN, last night to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Founded in 2017 and backed by investment firm Carlyle (NASDAQ: CG), USTC positions itself as a one-stop shop for materials, product design, technical expertise, and distribution of passive and active equipment and tooling for FTTP/FTTx/HFC, wireless, and data center network. It also offers supply chain management service. Walker and Associates covers much of the same waterfront as well as packet optical networking, Carrier Ethernet, switching, routing, and VoIP and serves a client base of more than 1000 broadband providers.
USTC says the addition of Walker and Associates expands its U.S. facilities count from three (two in Edison, NJ, and a third under construction in Dallas) to five (with the addition of Winston-Salem, NC, and Reno, NV) as well as its customer base. Both companies will see their product portfolios increase as well.
“The acquisition of Walker and Associates is a milestone in USTC’s growth. It allows us to further expand our technical expertise and one stop shop offering to our valued customers across our footprint,” explained Cédric Varasteh, founder and CEO of USTC. “Walker is a perfect fit for us. Given the complement of products and services without overlapping resources in the unification of our two organizations, we are positioned for future expansions, and are proud to be creating more American jobs. As our guiding principles outline, we value the people who do the work as well as the work they do. Together with Walker and Associates, we will continue redefining what a telecom equipment distributor and value-added service provider can be and do for our customers. We look forward to working with their team and are very excited about the future we can build together.”
“We are delighted to support USTC Corp in this transformational acquisition,” added Vladimir Lasocki, managing director at Carlyle, and Cyril Bourdarot, director at Carlyle and chairman of USTC Corp’s parent group. “Walker and Associates brings further scale, expertise, and capabilities to USTC’s existing strong presence in the U.S. market, which is strategically important and attractive due to its size and accelerating fiber, 5G, and more generally IP infrastructure deployments. The acquisition of Walker and Associates is a key milestone in our strategy to build a global one-stop shop value added distribution leader with unique expertise and scale to address all equipment needs of operators and installers for all technologies in the telecom sector.”
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.
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