Billing and customer-support services firm American Support announced Monday that it has completed its acquisition of privately held Evergreen Sales & Marketing, a provider of telesales services to major cable operators.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. American Support expects the combined organization to have annual revenue of more than $25 million, serving more than 70 customers and more than 400 cable systems in 29 states.
American Support, based in Chapel Hill, N.C., uses software from CSG Systems to provide billing, technical and customer support services to cable, telephone and Internet providers. Daytona Beach, Fla.-based Evergreen -- whose customers include Comcast and Time Warner Cable -- provides inbound and outbound telesales, quality assurance, list management and Hispanic and bilingual services to cable providers.
The combined company now has about 500 employees, with about 325 from Evergreen and 165 from American Support. American Support does not expect any layoffs "as the two companies offered different services," communications manager James Gallagher said.
"We are tremendously excited to have completed this process and are ready to begin assimilating the two organizations and to maximizing the opportunities created by this purchase," American Support CEO Matt Zemon said in a statement. "This acquisition joins two complementary organizations, and together, we can better help our clients reduce their costs, improve their ARPU [average revenue per unit] and become more efficient operations."
American Support plans to keep the Evergreen brand and operate it as a division that will continue to be headed by Evergreen president Jake Scully.
Evergreen, founded in 1989, is certified by the American Teleservices Association Self Regulatory Association. Comcast and TWC both ranked Evergreen their top outsourced services vendor for overall quality for 2010, according to the company.
Birmingham, Ala.-based Harbert Mezzanine Partners provided funding for the deal in the form of subordinated debt. Robert Berger with Communications Equity Associates represented Evergreen Sales & Marketing in the sale, while Kenneth Marks with High Rock Partners advised American Support.
