Late last week saw private equity move in on some more internet infrastructure. Court Square Capital has purchased a majority interest in Conterra Broadband. Conterra’s current senior management also invested, while Goldman Sachs, Duke Energy, and GE Capital took the opportunity to cash out.
Conterra mixes microwave and metro/regional fiber to bring dedicated bandwidth to under-served communities. That means the healthcare vertical, e-Rate opportunities, and wireless backhaul are their bread and butter. But as the economics of infrastructure have been steadily improving outside the traditional hubs, I imagine they are seeing more opportunities than they can shake a stick at. That means a bigger capex budget.
It’s not Court Square’s first foray into this sector, as they did basically the same thing four years ago over at Fibertech. In that deal they also partnered with the existing management while buying out Nautic and Ridgemont Equity. Since then, Fibertech has become steadily more aggressive in entering new markets.
Conterra Broadband’s CEO Steve Leeoulou was kind enough to endure one of Telecom Rambling’s earliest attempts at an interview back in the Spring of 2009. He’ll continue to lead the company forward with its new owners. No financial details of the deal were disclosed, other than that it should close sometime in the first half of 2014.
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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber · Wireless
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Congratulations to Steve and the guys at Conterra.