Rural Broadband Investments, a portfolio company of GTCR, has acquired Cable Management Associates, from Etan Industries.
Cable Management Associates offers digital cable television, high speed Internet and telephone service to homes and businesses in rural Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Nevada. The company passes approximately 120,000 homes in its combined service areas. Cable Management Associates is based in Dallas (www.cmaaccess.com).
Rural Broadband Investments (RBI) was formed by GTCR and Phil Spencer in 2012 to acquire broadband infrastructure assets in small and mid-sized communities. This is the second acquisition by RBI, which plans to build a platform of 300,000-400,000 cable subscribers in small-to-mid sized rural markets. RBI now serves over 120,000 customers and passes approximately 370,000 homes in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Nevada. RBI is headquartered in Overland Park, KS (www.ruralbroadbandinvestments.com).
“The acquisition of CMA is an excellent add-on to RBI following our recent platform acquisition of NewWave,” said Phil Spencer, CEO of Rural Broadband Investments. “We believe our team can successfully upgrade these systems to the latest technology, which would allow us to offer faster and more reliable internet service and significantly increase the number of HD channels to our video lineup. This will give us an exceptional opportunity to increase penetration in video, voice and high-speed internet services as well as advanced commercial services.”
“The CMA acquisition is an exciting opportunity to continue to build our investment in the cable industry,” said Phil Canfield, Managing Director at GTCR. “We look forward to continuing our work with Phil Spencer and his team to build a leading cable platform through increasing high-speed data penetration, growth in commercial services and additional accretive acquisitions.”
GTCR’s investment in CMA will be made from GTCR Fund X, a private equity fund with $3.25 billion of committed capital.
Waller Capital (www.wallercapital.com), a New York based investment bank, acted as the exclusive financial advisor to GTCR and RBI. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey and Goldman Sachs Bank USA arranged debt financing in connection with the transaction.
GTCR pioneered the investment strategy of identifying and partnering with executives to acquire and build companies through a combination of acquisitions and internal growth. The firm currently has nearly $7 billion in assets under management. Since its inception in 1980, GTCR has invested more than $10 billion in over 200 companies. GTCR is based in Chicago (www.gtcr.com).
© 2013 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 6-3-13
