Atlantic-Tele Network received a new $150 term loan to finance the purchase of former Alltel assets from Verizon Wireless, bringing the company one step closer to closing the deal. The company also received around $150 million in other credit facilities.
ATN has been trying to close the deal for the assets since it announced it would purchase them from Verizon last June for $200 million. The assets are ones that Verizon was required to divest from as part of its acquisition of Alltel, which it spent all of last year integrating. The deal includes wireless spectrum licenses and network assets, and covers more than 800,000 subscribers primarily in rural areas across Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina.
ATN said it still expected the deal to close in the first quarter and it expects annual service revenues from the assets to be between $450 million and $500 million for the first twelve months following the close of the deal. In December, ATN formed a new subsidiary, Allied Wireless, to run the properties. Allied will be headquartered in Little Rock, Ark. (where Alltel's headquarters were located), and will look to hire former Alltel workers who had been laid off after the acquisition.
For more:
- see this release
- see this Journal of New England Technology article
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