Grain Acquires More Fiber, to Buy Hunter and Summit

The private equity company Grain Management has been rather busy this month in the infrastructure space. Last week they took out Ritter Communications, but apparently they were still really hungry.  So this week they took out two more regional pockets of fiber and infrastructure announcing definitive agreements to acquire both Summit Broadband and a majority interest in Hunter Communications.

Hunter has managed to stay under my radar until now, but operates a substantial fiber footprint centered on Oregon. Working outward from the southern Oregon cities of Klamath Falls, Medford, and Grants Pass, they have built out a metro presence in Eugene, Portland, Seattle WA, Redding CA, and Sacramento CA and connect up to many smaller destinations in between. In all their network spans some 2,011 route miles of fiber. Bank Street Group, CoBank, and the law firms of Perkins Coie LLP and Alston Bird LLP helped facilitate the deal.

And down in the southeast, they bought Summit Broadband from Cable Bahamas, which itself bought Summit and US Metro and several smaller cable assets back in 2013 and combined them to create a substantial Florida presence. Today Summit operates 1,800 route miles of fiber in central and southwestern Florida, with a mix of residential, business, enterprise, and wholesale customers. For its part, Cable Bahamas will refocus its efforts on its home turf in, well, the Bahamas. According to CBL, the transaction was for $332.5M.

Also in Grain’s portfolio these days are Great Plains Communications and WANRACK.  I think they like regional fiber assets, but it’s just a hunch of course.

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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber