C&W takes 18 month European spending spree past $650m

NEWS Cable&Wireless (C&W) has splashed out $100m on five European web-related businesses, taking its European acquisition spending to $650m over the past 18 months. C&W is aiming to consolidate its IP related services to business customers and Mike McTighe, chief executive for global operations at C&W, said the current round of spending will consolidate the company's position as number three in the European ISP market - behind UUnet and ISPnet. McTighe denied C&W was just buying up market share. He said: "We're not buying revenue, although we do want it. We are building capability and reach across Europe - not just buying market share." The five additions are: Eaisa Group, the Spanish network integrator; Impact Group, the Dutch network integrator; Pictime, the French internet services company that focuses on medium to large sized businesses; POP Point of Presence, a German ISP and Widexs, the largest independent hosting company in the Netherlands. C&W will start the integration of the latest acquisitions straight away using the knowledge gained from past acquisitions. McTighe said: "We've learnt with recent acquisitions how to and how not to integrate companies into the C&W set up. The integration will start with the back office as soon as possible before network integration begins." McTighe added that the new additions will be co-branded first before rapidly moving to the C&W brand.