Back to press releasesNewark, N.J. and London UK, April 21, 2005 – IDT Europe announced today that it has acquired the Expercom pre-paid phone card business from Belgacom, Belgium’s leading telecommunications company. The deal strengthens IDT’s presence in Europe. IDT Europe is a division of IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT, IDT.C), an international telecom, technology and entertainment company.
Expercom markets calling cards throughout Belgium. The cards are available at post offices, railway stations, and retail location such as newspaper stands, neighborhood shops and supermarkets. Expercom’s cards provide low cost, high quality phone service within Belgium and to more than 200 countries worldwide. Calls may be placed from private, public or mobile phones. For the first part of 2004, Expercom calling card sales averaged more than 250,000 cards a month.
“This acquisition provides IDT with a solid platform for continued expansion across Europe, The Middle East and Africa,” said Jim Courter, IDT’s CEO. “IDT Europe’s plan is to expand organically and through strategic acquisitions. This is similar to how IDT built its calling card business in the U.S.”
IDT Europe presently markets more than 350 individual brands of calling cards in 17 European countries. The addition of Expercom’s calling card products gives IDT Europe a larger share of the market in Belgium and provides a platform for further expansion.
“The combination of IDT Europe and Expercom’s operations and plans for European expansion are an ideal fit, offering a tremendous opportunity of growth within the region,” said Marc Bodner, Managing Director of IDT Europe. “The quality of our products and commitment of our team have enabled us to grow considerably despite the competition in the calling card industry. IDT Europe has consolidated its position as the leading force in the European telephony industry and integrating the Expercom operations into IDT Europe will be a key focus for the next quarter.”
IDT Corporation, through its IDT Telecom subsidiary, is a facilities-based, multinational carrier that provides a broad range of telecommunications services to retail and wholesale customers worldwide. IDT Telecom, by means of its own international telecommunications backbone and fiber optic network infrastructure, provides its customers with integrated and competitively priced international and domestic long distance and domestic all-distance telephony and prepaid calling cards. IDT Entertainment is the IDT subsidiary focused on developing, acquiring, producing and distributing computer-generated and traditionally animated productions and other productions for the film, broadcast and direct-to-consumer markets. IDT Capital is the IDT division principally responsible for the Company’s initiatives in radio broadcasting, brochure distribution and new technologies. Net2Phone, Inc., a subsidiary of IDT Corporation, is a leading provider of high-quality global retail Voice over IP services and offers a fully outsourced cable telephony service to cable operators allowing cable operators to provide residential phone service to their subscribers.
IDT Corporation’s Class B Common Stock and Common Stock trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols IDT and IDT.C, respectively.
Important Note: In this press release, all statements that are not purely about historical facts, including, but not limited to, those include the words “believe,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “plan,” “intend,” “estimate,” “target” and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these forward-looking statements represent IDT’s current judgment of what may happen in the future, actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied by these statements due to numerous important factors, including, but not limited to, those described in IDT’s most recent report on SEC Form 10-K (under the heading “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”), which may be revised or supplemented in subsequent reports on SEC Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings IDT may make with the SEC.
