Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY), the largest consumer electronics retail chain in the U.S., may be eyeing another service provider acquisition to follow up on the Speakeasy purchase earlier this year. Speakeasy was a provider of IT services to small businesses, and Covad Communications (AMEX: DVW) is a larger broadband internet service provider. Is Best Buy really staking an offensive in the business world with one completed and one rumored acquisition? You bet.Best Buy for Business is a division of the retail giant that wants to be the products and service provider for small and medium businesses as the chain branches away from strictly consumer retail to broaden its portfolio and diversify revenues from the vagaries of retail that can change like the wind.
According to Broadband Reports, talks of an acquisition have been on-again, off-again for a while and may not be an acquisition of Covad in its entirety, but perhaps its VoIP business only. This would make sense, as Best Buy has recently stepped up its VoIP business in order to bring more competition to the telecom world. At this time, Covad is valued at about $194 million based on its current stock price of $0.65 per share on the American stock exchange.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-08-2007 @ 4:06PM
Ajay said...
This is a really interesting article and would be an interesting acquisition for Best Buy. I can see why they would want to diverisfy their revenue, Wal-Mart should have started doing this years ago. NewsVisual had an interesting article on this rumored merger http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/10/is-best-buy-int.html . It seems there are some corporate ties between Best Buy and Covad that probably play some role, since the negotiations are rumored to be just getting started.
10-23-2007 @ 3:23PM
steve Tarpley said...
Word on the street is that Point One (http://www.pointone.com/) is buying Covad. Suppose to be announced any time..... Who knows.