Fiber and carrier neutral data center provider Zayo has agreed to be acquired by Digital Colony Partners and EQT Partners for $8.2 billion in cash.
In a meeting on Friday, Zayo shareholders approved the transaction, valued at $14.3 billion minus Zayo’s $5.9 billion in debt, which is taken on by the new owners. Subject to regulatory approval, the acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2020.
Upon closing, Zayo shareholders will receive $35.00 in cash per share of the company's common stock.
Zayo-kay with me
Zayo’s fiber network spans 209,000km, connecting 1,100 data centers and more than 35,000 buildings in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and APAC. The company also runs more than 50 colocation data centers worldwide.
Dan Caruso, chairman and CEO at Zayo, said: “The entire Zayo team is excited to work with EQT and Digital Colony to leverage our fiber assets to continue to fuel global innovation.”
Earlier this year, Digital Colony Partners bought Canadian fiber company Peer 1 for $546 million. Peer 1’s portfolio includes over 3,300 route kilometers of dense metro fiber in the greater Toronto area and Montreal. The company also owns and operates several data centers across North America and Europe.
Zayo previously rejected an acquisition offer from a private equity consortium consisting of Blackstone Group LP, Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners LP, KKR & Co Inc, I Squared Capital, Charlesbank Capital Partners and GTCR Ltd.
Last November, Zayo announced that it was planning to split its business into two public companies, EnterpriseCo and InfraCo.
EnterpriseCo would manage Zayo’s networking segments, Enterprise Networks and Allstream, as well as its Ethernet and SONET divisions, while InfraCo would merge the company’s Fiber Solutions and zColo – the company’s data center and colocation business. Zayo decided against this split in February of this year, with the company saying that the spin-off would not be in its best interest.
