Dear Colleagues:
Today we announced the sale of Wireless Maritime Services (WMS), our joint venture with AT&T, to a private equity firm. WMS provides cellular roaming services to cruise ships. While WMS has always operated independently from Anuvu (and our predecessors EMC and MTN), we have followed its growth and progress from an innovative startup to the undisputed world leader in cellular calling at sea.
We believe WMS will thrive under private equity ownership. Our sale has customary protections for Anuvu, AT&T and WMS to avoid conflict in the marketplace, and we expect to collaborate with WMS on future opportunities. We will also continue to provide bandwidth services to WMS.
In the near term, we’ll be putting the cash proceeds from WMS onto our balance sheet, adding to our financial strength. WMS is one of two joint ventures we acquired with EMC; we sold Santander Teleport in 2021. By now selling WMS, we further focus our portfolio and accelerate our investment ability in transformative LEO-capable technology.
No Anuvu employees are affected by this transaction. As WMS is operated independently from Anuvu, there will be no changes to Anuvu’s cruise customer relationships, service contracts or guest experiences.
Please join me in congratulating the WMS team on a positive outcome for all stakeholders.
Josh Marks
