Zoom’s Five9 acquisition has fallen through after the latter’s shareholders rejected terms of the deal.
The proposed takeover was an all-stock deal initially valued at $14.7bn but concerned were raised last week, with Zoom’s share price down a quarter compared to when the deal was announced, therefore lowering the value of the deal.
Both Zoom and Five9 confirmed in statements that Five9 had not received the requisite number of shareholder votes to proceed with the deal.
Eric Yuan, CEO at Zoom, said that the contact centre space will remain a “strategic priority” for Zoom, pointing to the recently announced launch of the Zoom Video Engagement Center.
“We also plan to maintain our valued existing contact center partnerships with companies like Five9, Genesys, NICE inContact, Talkdesk, and Twilio,” he added.
“We remain focused on driving long-term value creation for Zoom shareholders and delivering happiness to our customers through our broad-based communications platform including unified communications, developer, and events solutions”
“While we were excited about the benefits this transaction would bring to both Zoom and Five9 stakeholders, including the long-term potential for both sets of shareholders, financial discipline is foundational to our strategy.”
“The contact center market remains a strategic priority for Zoom, and we are confident in our ability to capture its growth potential.”
Five9 also confirmed plans to continue the previous relationship between itself and Zoom.
Both companies highlighted the strengths of their respective businesses by insisting their future successes were not tied to the merger being approved.
Trollope added: “Over the past few months, we have continued to execute relentlessly in the market.
“With a focus on product innovation, excellence in go-to-market execution and a strong and evolving partner ecosystem, we continue to strengthen our relationships with customers and bring new businesses onto the Five9 platform.
“The contact center is the new front door for business and, as the market shifts from on-premises to cloud and digital transformation accelerates, we believe we are positioned to build on this momentum and grow market share.”
In a blog post, Eric Yuan said that the Five9 acquisition was “in no way foundational to the success of our platform nor was it the only way for us to offer our customers a compelling contact center solution”.
Yuan also highlighted previously announced Zoom innovations as signs of growth potential, including Events, Apps, Phone and its development platform.
