Private-equity investors Digital Colony and EQT have completed their $14.3 billion purchase of Zayo, 10 months after the deal was announced.
Marc Ganzi, CEO of US-based Digital Colony, and Jan Vesely, partner at Swedish investor EQT, did not immediately announce any changes in strategy for their new purchase.
But they declared themselves happy with their acquisition. “Zayo has amassed a world-class network that is unparalleled in the markets they serve, supporting the world’s most innovative companies,” said Ganzi. Vesely said: “Zayo is ideally positioned to meaningfully expand its offerings and services against the backdrop of accelerating demand for innovative fibre infrastructure solutions.”
Founded
in 2007, Colorado-based Zayo has grown through both organic investment and 45
acquisitions. It has metro and long-haul networks in the US, Canada and western
Europe.
It has 133,000 miles of network, including metro connectivity to thousands of buildings and data centres, with dark fibre, private data networks, wavelengths, Ethernet, dedicated internet access, and colocation services. Zayo owns and operates a Tier 1 IP backbone and 44 carrier-neutral data centres.
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Ganzi
added: “We believe that fibre networks are the crucial connective element in
the digital infrastructure ecosystem, and we look forward to partnering with
the Zayo team to execute on the plan of leveraging these powerful assets and
driving growth with our customers across multiple markets and verticals.”
Digital
Colony and EQT have announced no management changes. Zayo’s CEO Dan Caruso, who
set the company up 13 years ago after a career with the likes of MFS and Level
3, said: “We are excited to launch this new chapter of Zayo, as a private
company under the ownership of a consortium led by two highly experienced
infrastructure investors who have a deep understanding of our business and
bring significant value to Zayo.”
He started the company with $1 billion of funding from the original private equity investors – investment that was worth over $8 billion when the deal closed this week. “This is a great outcome for the company, its former shareholders, our customers and employees, and our new ownership group,” said Caruso.
“As
a private company, we will have greater flexibility to pursue our long-term
strategy and leverage our fibre to fuel global innovation for our customers.”
A few years ago the direction of the company had become uncertain: at one stage it proposed to split itself into an infrastructure company and a services company. So far, Digital Colony and EQT have not revealed any detail about their plans for such a huge acquisition.
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