Rivada Networks offers $25 million for LA-RICS LTE assets
Rivada Networks is offering $25 million to acquire the LTE assets of the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS)—more than double the $12 million offered by rival AT&T. At a board meeting in Los Angeles on Dec. 14, LA-RICS is expected to authorize its chairman to execute an “Asset Transfer Agreement” with AT&T for the acquisition of LA-RICS’s public-safety LTE network. Rivada Networks has already offered $25 million to acquire the same assets—more than twice the cash value of the AT&T bid.
“Yet again, AT&T is shortchanging public safety with a low-ball offer for LA-RICS’s assets,” Chairman and CEO Declan Ganley said. “Rivada’s bid to build a truly statewide public-safety broadband network for all of California went in last week, and it included a far more generous offer for the LA-RICS network.” Rivada will ask the LA-RICS board to consider the two offers side-by-side, rather than rush to accept a low-ball bid without competition. “This $12 million offer to LA-RICS is just the latest demonstration that without competition, public safety gets taken to the cleaners,” Ganley said. “Los Angeles deserves better, and California deserves better.”
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