Making its 18th acquisition of the recent era, Birch Communications today announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase substantially all of the assets of Lightyear Network Solutions.
The deal will give Birch network assets in several markets within Kentucky, including Lexington, and further increase the scope of their network. It will also expand their product suite with more hosted and managed services.
Lightyear had big plans after going public a few years ago, openly announcing its intention to begin a substantial roll up of small CLECs. But after buying Southeastern Telephone, that plan took a wrong turn somewhere and fizzled out.
For its part, these are just the sort of troubled CLEC assets they like to buy and integrate. Lightyear had about $60M in annual revenues, and under the agreement Birch will be spending $22M not including potential adjustments. After paying off its debts, Lightyear will disburse the remaining proceeds to its shareholders.
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Categories: CLEC · Mergers and Acquisitions
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This looks like a terrific deal for Birch. Any idea how instrumental the banker (Vik Grover) was in pulling this together? That is, did he bring the deal to Birch, or did Birch bring him in on a deal they targeted?
Long live UniDial! My 1st wholesale account way back when. Sherm, you were a pioneer in the wholesale business.
Any idea how this will affect Lightyear’s Network Marketing division (Lightyear Wireless)?
Birch announced another deal today, purchasing assets of Ernest Communications.
http://www.ernestgroup.com