Infrastructure provider Zayo said this week that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Crown Castes’ Fiber Solutions in a transaction valued at about $4.25 billion. That deal is being paired with Zayo backer EQT’s acquisition of Crown Castle’s small cell business.
Zayo specifically mentions artificial intelligence and cloud computing as motivations for the acquisition, which will add approximately 90,000 route miles to its holdings and expand its reach to more than 70,000 on-net locations.
Zayo is backed by DigitalBridge and EQT. The structure of the deal is that Zayo will acquire Crown Castle’s Fiber Solutions while EQT Active Core Infrastructure will independently acquire Crown Castles’ small cells business. The later acquisition also was announced this week.
The combined value of the two transactions is $8.5 billion. The acquisitions are expected to close during the first half of next year.
Concurrently, Zayo and the small cells business entered into a long-term agreement under which Zayo will provide fiber to the small cells business.
“We are strategically investing in expanding and enhancing our country’s critical network infrastructure to meet the demands of hyperscalers, data centers, enterprises and carriers that will facilitate the growing AI economy,” Zayo CEO Steve M. Smith said in a press release about the Crown Castle acquisition.
“This acquisition strengthens our ability to deliver the reliable, low-latency, high-capacity fiber solutions our customers need to scale in an increasingly data-driven world, and furthers our commitment to providing world class customer service and solutions.”
In February, Zayo announced plans to use asset-backed securitization (ABS) to secure financing. The company said it would issue notes valued at over $1.4 billion and secured with fiber infrastructure and long-term customer contracts in its northeast region. That transaction was expected to close on February 14, with the notes coming due in 2030.
