Zayo Group buys Chicago-based FiberLink

BOULDER – Zayo Group LLC bought FiberLink LLC in Chicago, the company said Monday.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Zayo, a Boulder-based telecommunication infrastructure company, used funds from a $250 million revolving credit facility to buy FiberLink, according to a company press release.

The FiberLink sale includes a 1,200-mile route of dark fiber-optic cable running from Chicago through Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska, to Denver, Zayo said in the press release.

As computer users need more online bandwidth, the “pipes” carrying information need to get larger and wider, meaning FiberLink assets became more valuable over the years, said Christopher J. Jensen, a spokesman for FiberLink and a managing principal at Anderson Pacific Corp. in Chicago, a previous investor in the company. Jensen did not give financial details of the value of the company.

“We’ve ridden the wave of bandwidth consumption over the last 10 years,” Jensen said.

FiberLink is a virtual company that leases bandwidth, meaning that it didn’t have any employees, Jensen said. The company was formed in 2004 by three independent telephone companies and by Anderson Pacific Corp., a Chicago-based private investment firm, Jensen said.

Zayo Group now offers about 26,000 route miles of dark fiber, which is associated with technical-support services, among other things. In all, the company has operations in 45 states and in Europe. It has more than 1,000 employees working in Boulder and in other offices in Louisville and the Denver Tech Center. Founded in 2007, Zayo Group has grown through purchase of other telecom companies.

Probably the most well-known Zayo purchase was of AboveNet Inc. (NYSE:ABVT) in summer 2012 for $2.2 billion.

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