Platinum Equity announced today that its portfolio company Matrix Telecom, Inc. has completed the acquisition of Global Crossing’s Small Business Group (SBG), which provides voice and data products to small- and medium-sized enterprise customers in the United States. In addition, Global Crossing and Matrix announced they have executed a long-term carrier services agreement under which Global Crossing will provide a full suite of voice, data and IP services to Matrix and its customers. SBG’s current product offering includes switched and dedicated voice services and data applications.

“The integration of Matrix and SBG is well underway and should be seamless for customers,” said Rob Joubran, chief operating officer and treasurer for Platinum Equity. “These two businesses complement one another extremely well, and combining them enhances the capabilities of both. Our top priority during the integration process is to maintain excellent service for customers of both Matrix and SBG.”

Global Crossing divested SBG after announcing it intended to de-emphasize certain non-core areas of its business, including the small- to medium-sized enterprise space. Platinum Equity, which often works with large corporations on non-core divestitures, identified the business as a strong complement to Matrix. A definitive agreement to sell SBG to Matrix was announced in March 2005.

“One of Platinum’s core strengths is our ability to grow existing portfolio companies through strategic add-on acquisitions that expand their capabilities, and the SBG acquisition is a great example of that,” said Matt Young, senior vice president for M&A at Platinum.

“We not only provided a divestiture solution to Global Crossing, which viewed the business as non-core, but we strengthened both SBG and Matrix by bringing them together,” Mr. Young said. “Moving forward, our M&A team will continue seeking additional acquisitions to further expand Matrix Telecom’s small- and medium-sized enterprise customer base.”