BRIDGETOWN-Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al Inc (Colum­bus) an­nounced on Wednes­day that through a whol­ly-owned sub­sidiary, it has en­tered in­to a de­fin­i­tive agree­ment to ac­quire all of the is­sued and out­stand­ing shares of An­tilles Cross­ing (Bar­ba­dos) IBC Inc and An­tilles Cross­ing Hold­ing Com­pa­ny (St Lu­cia) Ltd. The ac­qui­si­tions are from Caribbean Fi­bre Hold­ings, LP.

The trans­ac­tion in­cludes the pur­chase of Tele­Bar­ba­dos Inc, Tele-St Lu­cia Inc and Wam­co Tech­nol­o­gy Group Ltd. Tele-Bar­ba­dos owns and op­er­ates a fi­bre rich telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work in Bar­ba­dos and pro­vides ad­vanced voice and da­ta ser­vices to a di­verse re­tail and cor­po­rate cus­tomer base on both a wire­less and a hard-wired ba­sis.

Ac­cord­ing to Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al, Tele-Bar­ba­dos holds a broad range of li­cens­es as is­sued un­der the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act of Bar­ba­dos to pro­vide do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al voice ser­vices, back­haul band­width ca­pac­i­ty ser­vices, In­ter­net ex­change ser­vices, man­aged da­ta net­work ser­vices, vir­tu­al pri­vate net­work ser­vices, pub­lic In­ter­net ac­cess ser­vices, fixed wire­less tele­com ser­vices, do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al tele­com ser­vices, and var­i­ous wire­less spec­trum ser­vices.

Tele-St Lu­cia holds a se­ries of li­cens­es is­sued un­der the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act of St Lu­cia to pro­vide sim­i­lar ser­vices through­out St Lu­cia. Com­ment­ing on the trans­ac­tion, Colum­bus chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Bren­dan Pad­dick, said: "The ac­qui­si­tion of Tele-Bar­ba­dos marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in Colum­bus' en­try in­to the Bar­ba­dos tele­com mar­ket­place.

Colum­bus plans to in­vest heav­i­ly in Bar­ba­dos over the next 24 to 36 months to of­fer con­sumers the full triple play of broad­band In­ter­net, dig­i­tal land­line tele­phone and ad­vanced In­ter­net pro­to­col-based video ser­vices un­der the brand name Flow. "In ad­di­tion, Colum­bus will be launch­ing a se­ries of cor­po­rate da­ta, con­nec­tiv­i­ty and in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy ser­vices un­der the brand Colum­bus Busi­ness So­lu­tions."

"With our re­cent­ly an­nounced US$225 mil­lion cred­it fa­cil­i­ty, Colum­bus is well po­si­tioned to make an im­me­di­ate and sig­nif­i­cant di­rect in­vest­ment in in­fra­struc­ture in Bar­ba­dos, re­sult­ing in the launch of a host of new ad­vanced con­sumer and cor­po­rate ser­vices, the cre­ation of hun­dreds of new high tech­nol­o­gy jobs and low­er prices lead­ing to a more com­pet­i­tive Bar­ba­dos in the glob­al econ­o­my," Pad­dick said.