Digital Colony Powers Beanfield Buy of Aptum’s Metro

There was a bit of metro fiber M&A up in Canada yesterday despite the ongoing pandemic situation. Beanfield Metroconnect is acquiring the metro network assets of Aptum Technologies, with the help of a capital infusion and recapitalization from Digital Colony.

Digital Colony bought a majority stake in Beanfield about six months ago, giving it a platform to work with in Ontario and Quebec. Since then the company has boosted its network to 4000 route kilometers connecting up 3,200 buildings, partly via organic means and partly via the acquisition of Montreal-based Openface.

Now they are infusing another C$255M (US$181) in funds into Beanfield to empower the company’s acquisition of Aptum’s metro network. Aptum is a cloud and managed services provider with a substantial presence in Toronto and Montreal that you may remember better under it’s previous name: Cogeco Peer 1. Their footprint includes 3400km of metro fiber in Toronto and Montreal, and that is what Beanfield is acquiring, adding further depth to the regional and metro fiber platform they are assembling.

The financing includes a first lien term loan and a revolving credit facility. TD Securities, RBC Capital Markets, and Suntrust Robinson Humphrey helped push the transaction through.

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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber