Avaya

Separation from Lucent Technologies

On October 2, 2000, as a result of the separation of the Corporate Communications Networks Department from Lucent Technologies , a new company was formed, the chairman of the board of directors of which was first Henry Schacht but in December 2000, Patricia Russo was appointed chairman of the board of directors ^[1] . The first executive director of Avaya was Don Peterson, who previously held the position of CFO at Lucent ^[2] . Avaya entered the stock exchange under the symbol AV, the starting price of the stock was $ 20 ^[3] . For over 100 years, Avaya has been part of Western Electric and AT&T .

Tenovis Acquisition

In November 2004, Avaya acquired the German telecommunications company Tenovis for $ 635 million, which employed 5.4 thousand people. Tenovis has undergone major restructuring as part of its integration into the Avaya group. Subsidiaries were formed to which units such as the Equipment Installation and Maintenance Department were transferred, some parts of the company became independent organizations, followed by staff reductions. In mid-2006, the number of Avaya employees in Europe was 4.5 thousand people. In the 2007-2008 fiscal year, the company's staff in Germany increased by 3,560 people; by the beginning of 2010, it totaled 2,900 people.

Investor Acquisition

In 2006, Louis D'Ambrosio ^[4] became President and CEO of Avaya; in June 2008, he left his post due to health problems. On October 26, 2007, Silver Lake Partners and the Pacific Pacific Group (TPG) invested in Avaya for $ 8.2 billion, or $ 17.5 a share. ^[5] On October 26, 2007, the company discontinued the sale of ordinary shares and is no longer bidding on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Acquisition of Nortel Enterprise Solutions

On September 14, 2009, it was announced that Avaya won the auction for the sale of the corporate solutions division of Nortel , which agreed to Avaya’s offer to pay $ 900 million ^[6] On December 21, 2009 Avaya and Nortel officially announced the completion of the transaction. As a result, Avaya has expanded to 21 thousand employees worldwide ^[7] .

2011 New IPO

In June 2011, Avaya applied for an initial public offering of shares with the US Securities and Exchange Commission . During the IPO, she plans to raise about $ 1 billion ^[8] .

2017 Bankruptcy and Reorganization

In January 2017, Avaya filed for bankruptcy in order to obtain protection from creditors, as the value of the company's assets is estimated at $ 5.5 billion, and the company's debt amounted to $ 6.3 billion ^[9] . But over the course of the year, the company agreed with a major lender on a reorganization plan under which Avaya is committed to reducing debt by more than $ 3 billion and transferring part of its pension debts to the state pension insurance agency Pension Benefit Guaranty, and then to get out of bankruptcy protection as public company. The reorganization of the company will also be handled by a new CEO, who will be former operations director Jim Chirico, a top manager who has been working for the company for almost 10 years, and former CEO Kevin Kennedy will formally resign from January 2009 at the end of September 2017 and remain in Avaya as a consultant ^[10] .

In March 2017, it became known that as part of the reorganization, the Avaya Networking unit ( network equipment business) would be sold to Extreme Networks for $ 100 million ^{[11] [12]} .

Financial Recovery and Entry on the New York Stock Exchange

On December 19, 2017, Avaya announced the successful completion of the financial restructuring.

“This is the start of a new era in Avaya history,” said Jim Chirico, President and CEO of Avaya. - The company has become public, significantly improving its financial performance. As a result of the restructuring process, Avaya reduced its debt burden by $ 3 billion, while more than $ 300 million of free cash is on the company's balance sheet. Avaya expects annual payments to be reduced by $ 300 million compared to fiscal year 2016 due to lower debt servicing and other cost items. ”

On the morning of January 17, 2018, the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the code AVYA.

The company produces hardware and software systems for contact centers, voice telephony , data transmission , IP telephony, and also specializes in the design, development, deployment and administration of corporate communications networks, including speech recognition technologies. Avaya offers products in three fundamental areas of corporate communications: IP-telephony, unified communications, contact centers.

Market Position

The experts ^{[ who? ]} in the field of corporate communications and technology recognize Avaya as a leader international market. She reached the lead global market positions in the following areas:

• Unified Communications and Corporate Telephony ^[13]
• Contact Centers ^[14]
• Enterprise Messaging Systems ^[15]
• Audio Conferencing ^[16]
• Telecommunication Equipment Maintenance ^[17]

In addition, according to the assessment of the completeness of vision and ability to implement, the research company Gartner repeatedly placed Avaya in the quadrant of market leaders:

• The Quadrant of Leaders in the Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony for 2009 ^[18] .
• The Quadrant of Leaders in the Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure for 2008 ^[14] .

Sponsorship projects

Avaya was one of the sponsors of the 2006 World Cup in Germany ^[19] , the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver ^[20] , and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

• - The official Avaya site
• Official website of the company (Russian)