Verizon-Straight Path Deal Closes With All Debts Paid

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Verizon closed on its more than $3 billion acquisition of Straight Path Communications Inc. Verizon’s all-stock offer topped AT&T’s last May, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Straight Path holds an extensive portfolio of 39 GHz and 28 GHz wireless spectrum licenses that it’s developing for 5G services through its Straight Path Ventures subsidiary. The company now becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of Verizon; its “STRP” shares were delisted from the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, Straight Path announced.

Before the deal closed yesterday, Straight Path and Verizon paid a more than $600 million civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury. The FCC said it was the largest civil penalty ever paid to resolve an Enforcement Bureau investigation. The settlement resolved allegations that Straight Path failed to provide service on some 1,000 millimeter wave spectrum licenses awarded by the Commission. 

Under a settlement reached between Straight Path and the bureau, the company had to sell the licenses and remit 20 percent of the proceeds to the U.S. Treasury.  In May 2017, Verizon and Straight Path agreed to transfer the licenses, and this January, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau approved the transfer.

Yesterday, Straight Path and Verizon paid $614,300,000 to the U.S. Treasury to satisfy the settlement terms. That’s in addition to $15 million that Straight Path previously paid; earlier it returned 196—approximately 20 percent—of its licenses to the Commission that were not included in the Verizon deal.

March 1, 2018

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