Zayo Group Holdings has returned to the privately-held ranks now that its $14.3 billion acquisition is complete. Affiliates of Digital Colony Partners and the EQT Infrastructure IV fund announced on Monday that they have completed their deal to buy Zayo, which was first announced in May of last year.
Now that the transaction is finished, Zayo's stock has ceased trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Zayo shareholders received $35 per share in a cash transaction, but the deal also included the assumption of $5.9 billion of Zayo’s net debt obligations.
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"As a private company, we will have greater flexibility to pursue our long-term strategy and leverage our fiber to fuel global innovation for our customers," said Zayo CEO Dan Caruso, in a statement.
RELATED: Reuters: Zayo Group in sales talks with investment firms
Driven by the advent of 5G, IoT, augmented and virtual reality, and OTT video services, investors have been buying up network, data center and fiber-based assets in order to cash in on the increased demand for bandwidth capacity. Last year there were numerous rumors around the sale of Zayo.
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Founded in 2007, Boulder, Colorado-based Zayo provides fiber connections for the communications industry across the U.S., Canada and Europe. Zayo’s 130,000-mile network in North America and Europe includes metro connectivity to thousands of buildings and data centers.
Zayo’s communications infrastructure offerings include dark fiber, private data networks, wavelengths, Ethernet, dedicated internet access and data center colocation services. Zayo also owns and operates a Tier 1 IP backbone and 51 carrier-neutral data centers.
Before going public in 2014, Zayo’s original private equity investors funded the company with just over $1 billion of equity. Zayo's growth was fueled through both organic investments and 45 acquisitions.