Independent Finance News
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Grande’s Texas triple-play network goes up for sale
By Ed Gubbins
Texas cable overbuilder Grande Communications announced today it was pursuing “strategic alternatives,” potentially selling its fiber network and triple-play business...
Pac-West bounces back again
By Carol Wilson
The new CEO of Pac-West Telecom is promising a financially healthier company with ambitious plans for the Western region...
Citizens CEO: No consumer ‘softness’ here
By Ed Gubbins
Citizens Communications is not seeing the same economic “softness” in residential markets that AT&T reported yesterday, according to Maggie Wilderotter, Citizens’ chief executive officer, who spoke late yesterday at the same investor conference...
Small telcos feel merger pressure
By Ed Gubbins
In the wake of major-carrier consolidation, merger activity among small and regional telcos is escalating and should continue next year...
Falling prices tempt RLEC consolidators
By Ed Gubbins
While integrating its acquisition of CT Communications, executives of Windstream Communications reiterated the case for future acquisitions this week, and some analysts say recent changes in the market could encourage further consolidation among rural carriers...
Competitors: Can video cash replace USF cow?
By Tim McElligott
Qwest executive vice president Dan Yost, Comcast senior vice president Gary Traver and Janco Partners director of research Donna Jaegers gave the outsiders' look to rural telcos recently at CoBank's Communications Industry Executive Forum...
Embarq: Year Two
By Ed Gubbins
Heading into its second year as a standalone company, the former Sprint operation is building a business on fixed/mobile convergence. But with revenue and access lines still declining, can it reinvent itself fast enough?...
Windstream CEO: RLEC M&A on hold ‘til ‘08
By Ed Gubbins
Though further consolidation is needed in the rural telecom carrier space, it will probably have to wait until next year, when the credit environment improves, according to Jeff Gardner, CEO of Windstream, a large, rural telco...
Xfone acquires Texas carrier
By Ed Gubbins
Competitive carrier Xfone has agreed to acquire West Texas carrier NTS Communications for $42 million...
Tellabs' BellSouth FTTC spending picks up
By Ed Gubbins
Spending from AT&T and its constituent companies improved in the second quarter but haven’t yet returned to the levels seen before last year’s merger with BellSouth, according to Tellabs...
Updated: American Broadband to acquire TelAlaska
By Tim McElligott
Another family-owned rural telephone company has agreed to sell its assets to Charlotte, N.C.-based American Broadband. TelAlaska, the third largest independent phone company in Alaska, will become the latest acquisition in American Broadband’s quest to compile 100,000 access lines around the U.S....
Alltel's private party
By Kevin Fitchard
Alltel is the first U.S. wireless operator to be taken private through leveraged buyout. It now becomes a test case for determining what a private company can do that a public company can't...
Telco chiefs talk growth
By Tim McElligott
Organic growth may be a priority for independent telcos, but it won't help them achieve the scale and cost structures they need to please Wall Street. What will? M&A, baby....
Citizens Communications to acquire Global Valley Networks, GVN Services
By Tim McElligott
Citizens Communications Chairman and CEO Maggie Wilderotter stayed true to her recent words that small acquisitions can make as much sense as big ones by announcing last week it will acquire 100% of the outstanding common stock of Evans Telephone Holdings, the parent company of Global Valley Networks and GVN Services...
Reynolds leaves BT for New Zealand
By Tim McElligott
Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale, is about to put himself through another challenging separation and transformation project. After a 24-year career at BT, the last few of which he successfully led the effort to separate businesses within the company, Reynolds today accepted the top job at Telecom Corp, New Zealand's largest telephone company...
Access line roll-up continues as Windstream buys CT Communications
Tim McElligott
Little Rock, Ark.-based Windstream, the second largest and most rural independent operating company in the country, said last week it will acquire CT Communications...
Windstream grows NC presence with CT buy
By Tim McElligott
Windstream will acquire CT Communications in the second half of this year for approximately $585 million, the companies said today. In the process, Windstream eliminates a growing competitor in a growing market...
Alltel to go private in $27.5B deal
By Kevin Fitchard
The mass speculation on the possibility of an Alltel buyout came to an end today as the rural provider revealed it has accepted a $27.5 billion offer from two private equity firms to take the publicly owned mobile carrier off the market...
Unions go for a block on FairPoint acquisition
By Tim McElligott
Jobs, pension and economic development top union concerns about FairPoint Communcations' intentions in New England. Are they justified?...
Windstream gets validation on consistency model
By Tim McElligott
Windstream Communications held an analyst conference in New York’s financial district today to assess its performance in 2006 and its position in the market place after completing its spinoff from Alltel last July, as well as lay out its reporting methods moving forward...
NTCA urges self-reliance through regional and national networks
By Tim McElligott
ORLANDO--With recent merger and acquisition activity among national carriers limiting rural providers’ choice of access and purchasing power and threatening their very future, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association urged members to consider or reconsider cooperating on the construction of regional and national networks...
Investors take over Sage Telecom
By Tim McElligott
Silver Point Capital will acquire Sage Telecom next quarter and has contracted with CXO LLC, a Dallas-based management and advisory services firm, to oversee operations during the transition...
Verizon spins off local lines in three states
By Carol Wilson
Verizon announced this morning it is spinning off its local lines in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont to its shareholders and will merge that spin-off into FairPoint Communications, a North Carolina-based conglomerate of rural local exchange carriers...
Shepards and Harveys to sell Hargray Communications
By Tim McElligott
They still have a two- to three-month review period to complete, but the board of directors of Hargray Communications Group has agreed in principal with Morningstar Management and Quadrangle Capital Partners to sell the company...
Embarq, AT&T: Access line loss stabilizing
By Carol Wilson
Two major telephone companies are once again saying that access line loss is slowing. The same comments were made in November when third quarter results were announced, but many industry analysts were skeptical, given the sharp rise in cable VoIP and service bundle choices...
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