Lumos Networks and Spirit Communications announced yesterday that the EQT Infrastructure III fund has completed its majority stake investment in Spirit. With the transaction complete, Spirit will be combined with Lumos, which was acquired in November of 2017.
The combination of Spirit and Lumos creates a super-regional fiber network stretching from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, with the vast majority of revenue and fiber network concentrated in the high-growth markets of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The merged company will operate a network of approximately 21,000 fiber route miles and over one million total fiber strand miles. The combined business will have over 9,000 on-net locations, comprised of approximately 4,500 on-net enterprise locations and more than 4,500 unique contracted fiber to the cell locations.
Jan Vesely, Partner at EQT Partners and Investment Advisor to EQT Infrastructure, said, “The combination of Spirit and Lumos has strong industrial logic and immediately creates a leading fiber bandwidth platform in the United States. Both companies share many of the same attributes that EQT seeks in its infrastructure investments. We are very much looking forward to supporting the combined business in its ambitious growth plans and working alongside Spirit’s Member Companies.”
Timothy G. Biltz, President and CEO of Lumos, will be CEO of the combined company according to the announcement. Robert Keane, President and CEO of Spirit prior to the combination, and Brian Singleton, CEO of TruVista and Chairman of the Spirit Board of Directors prior to the combination, will serve on the combined company’s Board of Directors.
April 13, 2018
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