Corvis and Cequel III, a St. Louis-based telecommunications and cable management firm, completed their acquisition of Broadwing Communications from Cincinnati Bell, subject to certain remaining state and local regulatory requirements. The companies said that in accordance with the asset purchase agreement, the originally announced network purchase price of $129 million has been reduced to approximately $91 million. In addition, C III Communications is purchasing net working capital of $17 million for which payment, with interest, will be deferred for one year. Cincinnati Bell will be a customer of C III Communications and will continue to market its broadband products to business customers. Cincinnati Bell will also sell long-distance services, under the Cincinnati Bell Any Distance brand, to residential and business customers in the Greater Cincinnati market.
Mark F. Spagnolo has been appointed Interim CEO of Broadwing Communications. Spagnolo has held various executive positions with Electronic Data Systems, as well as the position of President and CEO for UUNET. Prior to founding his own telecommunications consulting firm in 2002 (The Spagnolo Group, LP), Mr. Spagnolo was the President, CEO and Chairman for SiteSmith, a managed services company that delivered outsourced Internet services to the Global 1000. In 2001, Metromedia Fiber Networks (MFN) purchased SiteSmith for $1.4 billion, and later named Mr. Spagnolo President and CEO of MFN.
http://www.corvis.com
- On 25-Feb-2003, Broadwing agreed to sell its broadband business, Broadwing Communications Services Inc., including the Broadwing name, to privately held C III Communications. The sale includes Broadwing's 18,700 mile national fiber network, its all-optical switching platform, a state-of-the-art network operations center and all the other network elements necessary to provide its integrated and managed broadband telecommunications services.
- Cequel III was founded in January 2002 as a privately held company whose mission is to acquire or invest in telecommunication companies that offer platforms for future acquisitions and industry consolidation. In May 2002, Cequel III made equity investments in and assumed management of AAT Communications Corporation, which owns or manages more than 6,000 tower sites across the US. On February 12, 2003, Cequel III announced that it had assumed management of and agreed to invest in Classic Communications, a cable provider with 325,000 subscribers. On February 21, Cequel III announced its intention to acquire Shaw Communications' Texas-based cable systems, which serve approximately 27,000 customers.
