Cable One plans to expand and enhance its growing business services segment with the acquisition of Clearwave Communications, the operator announced Monday.
Illinois-based Clearwave operates a regional fiber network, mainly providing business services in southern Illinois. Clearwave owns more than 2,400 route miles of metro fiber infrastructure connecting about 2,700 on-net businesses, towers and data centers.
Clearwave operates in Cable One’s existing service footprint and gives the service provider, which is among the 10 largest cable companies in the U.S., an opportunity to build on enterprise business segment focus.
“We are excited to partner with the Clearwave team, who have built a highly successful business services platform in non-urban markets with similar characteristics to ours,” said Julie Laulis, president and CEO of Cable One, in a statement. “This transaction provides us with a unique opportunity to continue to grow Clearwave in its existing footprint as well as expand our fiber footprint and enterprise business segment.”
During the third quarter, Cable One added nearly 1,200 business services HSD PSUs, with business services revenues increasing 12.6 percent year over year. Total revenues were up 5.7 percent to $269.3 million.
During Cable One’s recent quarterly earnings call, Laulis said the company completed the deployment of hosted voice services across the operator’s entire footprint.
“This is reflective of our continued focus on developing and enhancing our business services product set. Another example is our recent launch of Business SIP trunks throughout our entire service area,” Laulis said, according to a SeekingAlpha transcript of the call. “SIP trunking enables scalability, flexibility and benefit customers who have modern PBXs with a more cost-effective solution than traditional TDM-based service.”
Laulis also hinted that Cable One may be rebranding in an effort to better reflect the provider’s residential high-speed data and business services focus.
“We are optimistic about the opportunities this presents and we expect to share more on what we are evaluating next quarter,” Laulis said.
Financial details of the all-cash deal for Clearwave were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019.
Clearwave is currently owned by funds affiliated with Stephens Capital Partners, the private equity arm of Stephens Inc., based in Little Rock, Ark.