Tuesday M&A Bytes: Zayo, Digital Realty, Cincinnati Bell

I’m on the road again this week, though not in a form I need to worry about that thing everyone is talking about that I don’t want to write about.  But over the past few days, key milestones were reached in three of the biggest M&As currently underway that are worth catching up on:

It’s finally official, Zayo is privately held and given the current financial market mood I’m sure they’re quite happy about that. Digital Colony and EQT have completed the $14.3B acquisition of the Boulder-based fiber builder and operator. Now the question is what path Zayo takes from here. Are Digital Colony and EQT just re-enabling Dan Caruso’s original vision, or will they shift its emphasis? I imagine we won’t have to wait long before we get a few data points.

Digital Realty is one step closer to its purchase of Interxion. Yesterday they revealed that they have reached the minimum condition on their ongoing exchange offer, reaching 83.3% of the European data center operator’s stock. Now they are in the ‘subsequent offering period’, in which they hope to get that up to 95% and compell the rest, but if not then those that don’t tender their shares get Digital Realty stock instead. Or so it seems – I don’t really understand the European M&A process too well.

And the Cincinnati Bell soap opera appears to be over. Well, at least the auction is, as Brookfield Infrastructure has declined to exercise its right to propose another revision to the merger agreement. Maquarie’s bid, therefore, stands alone, and Cincinnati Bell says it intends to terminate the agreement with Brookfield and enter into a new one with Maquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets on March 13. It’ll be a while yet though before this deal gets finalized.

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Categories: Datacenter · Fiber Networks · ILECs, PTTs · Mergers and Acquisitions