With Solid Q2, Lumos Pivots Further Toward Fiber

Along with its Q2 results, Lumos today announced a new market launch, brought a key data center campus on-net, and revealed a $150M cash infusion from the private equity world. Lumos has been putting more and more of its effort into expanding its fiber reach over the last few years, and is now seeing its future as a pure fiber play.

Lumos says it has entered into definitive agreements for an investment by Pamplona Capital Management. Pamplona is investing $150M, for which it will get debt securities and warrants for 5.5M shares of common stock. Lumos will use the proceeds to pay off its senior bank debt, with the remaining $100M to be aimed toward further growth, both organic and inorganic. They’ll also be getting two new board members, as Pamplona’s William Pruellage and Peter Aquino, former CEO of RCN and executive chairman at Primus, will be joining as part of the deal.

On the operational front, Lumos has launched its newest market down in the Tidewater region of southeastern Virginia. Lumos’s Virginia expansion started in Richmond and has continued aggressively since.  Today they added reach Up in Ashburn, they also brought online the DuPont Fabros Technology campus, adding the six data centers and 1.3M square feet of space there to their reach. That gives them 33 data centers and 2560 or so total on-net locations.

And perhaps more auspiciously, they launched their 24th and newest metro market, extending deep into the Norfolk and Hampton Roads metro areas. The latest fiber expansion, which they’ve been working on over the past year or so, will be complete by the end of 2015, adding 270 route miles to the company’s total.  With the Virginia build-outs now seemingly well in hand, I wonder where the next target will be.  Not that there isn’t plenty more to do to develop the new Virginia markets, of course.

Oh, and as for Q2 results, they beat expectations. Revenue of $51.0M were $1M or so above analyst projections, while diluted earnings per share of $0.14 were a few pennies higher as well.  They reiterated full year guidance.

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Categories: Fiber Networks · Financials · Metro fiber