Zayo continues acquisition spree

LOUISVILLE — Zayo Group LLC plans to acquire American Fiber Systems Holding Corp. within the next three to four months, bringing the number of acquisitions the Louisville-based telecommunications firm has made since it was formed in 2006 to 15.

Zayo provides bandwidth infrastructure and collocation services.

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Zayo, founded by Dan Caruso and John Scarano, with the purchase of American Fiber, will have more than 20,000 route miles of regional fiber, metro fiber and fiber to tower networks that span 141 markets and 23 states.

American Fiber is based in Rochester, N.Y., and provides fiber network and telecom services to metropolitan areas.

“The addition of AFS’ markets significantly increases the geographic scope of the bandwidth infrastructure services that Zayo offers to its customers,” said Dan Caruso, president and chief executive of Zayo Group.

American Fiber has more than 800 route miles of fiber networks in six metropolitan markets — Boise, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Nashville, Reno and Salt Lake City. It also has approximately 400 additional route miles in Atlanta, Cleveland and Minneapolis. Atlanta, Boise and Las Vegas represent nearly 75 percent of American Fiber’s revenue base.

In late June, Zayo completed the acquisition of Atlanta-based AGL Networks LP for an undisclosed amount. Zayo announced the intent to acquire the AGL in March.

The acquisition gives Zayo access to AGL’s 850 route miles of fiber and 270 buildings.

“AGL Networks is a pure play dark-fiber infrastructure provider and is expected to add $9 million to $10 million of post synergized EBITDA and $160 million of total contract value to Zayo Group,” Ken desGarennes, Zayo’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. Dark fiber gives users access to the raw, unused fiber-optic strands in a company’s network.

Privately held Zayo Group has Zayo Group is organized into three business units: Zayo Bandwidth, which focuses on the carrier and wholesale segment, Zayo Enterprise Networks and zColo.