Optus may swoop for Commander

A source within Commander has informed CRN that Optus is the most likely suitor for its Commander Centre subsidiary which provides services and support to end-users.

Whether Optus plans to purchase just the Commander Centre subsidiary or further parts of the business remain to be seen.

After a prolonged period of turbulent trading, Commander finally went into administration last month with Amanda Lacaze, managing director and CEO of Commander, stating the announcement was made "with great regret”.

Since then the future of Commander has remained uncertain with its various subsidiaries set to be purchased as a whole or picked off separately.

At the time of the announcement, Peter Anderson, partner at McGrathNicol, said: "It is the Receivers' intention that all current Commander services will continue uninterrupted whilst the sale process is undertaken, and that all Commander customer needs continue to be serviced. There are no plans for major structural changes to the business while the sale process is underway.”

Speaking recently on the demise of Commander, Craig Neil, managing director of voice integrator NSC, said: “It [Commander] would be a good pick up and I think Telstra could pick it back up and set it back up in the SME market. Optus might also be in there. At the end of the day its core business was a great brand with a good solid foundation and a refocus on its core business would help it to get back on track.”

In February, Commander sold Unitel, its wholesale network services business arm to M2 Telecommunications for $10 million. The Unitel acquisition complemented M2’s existing appointment as the exclusively endorsed Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) for the Optus 3G mobile network.

An Optus spokesperson, said: "We do not comment on rumour or speculation".