European Internet services provider EUnet is to consolidate its currently disparate operations into a single new company, EUnet International Ltd, and has won venture capital funding of around $12.5m to help it through the transition. The new company is expected to have a revenue of $44m in 1996, and some 225 employees, under the control of current EUnet Communications Services managing director Wim Vink. EUnet grew out of the Europe-wide network of Unix user groups then known as the EUUG – European Unix User Group, and was formed in 1982 as a loose association of Internet infrastructure providers. Although now the largest provider of Internet backbone services across Europe, EUnet has remained only the sum of its parts, despite some consolidation in the early 1990s, when the EUnet Communications Services headquarters was set up in Amsterdam. Cracks began appearing last June when The University of Kent sold its 85% stake in EUnet Ltd to PSInet Inc, of Herndon, Virginia (CI No 2,790) for the extremely low price of 2.5m British pounds (CI No 2,865). And in November, UUNet Technologies, the owner of Unipalm Pipex and now itself soon to be part of MFS Communications Corp, took a 40% stake in EUnet Germany for a similarly small price tag (CI No 2,797). The consolidation should prevent further piecemeal sell-offs, and enable EUnet to compete with the US majors more effectively. Through share swaps, individual EUnet companies will gain a stake in EUnet International, a UK- registered company that intends to seek a listing on the NASDAQ system. EUnet affiliates in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Norway and Switzerland have already agreed to the move, with others still under negotiation. The venture capital comes from Advent International, which already funds four US Internet-related businesses.
