Private equity firm GTCR and Rural Broadband Investments said Monday they have closed a deal to acquire Cable Management Associates, its second deal in about a month.
According to GTCR and RBI, Cable Management Associates passes about 120,000 homes in rural Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Nevada. Earlier this year RBI said it planned to build a platform of between 300,000 and 400,000 cable subscribers in small to mid-sized markets across the country. With the CMA deal and its May acquisition of New Wave Communications, RBI now serves more than 120,000 customers and passes about 370,000 homes in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Nevada.
“The acquisition of CMA is an excellent add-on to RBI following our recent platform acquisition of NewWave,” said RBI CEO Phil Spencer in a statement. “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.”
Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP served as legal counsel for CMA’s parent company, Etan Industries. RBC Capital Markets represented Etan and served as Etan’s exclusive M&A advisor. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel and PriceWaterhouseCoopers served as accounting advisor to GTCR and RBI.
Waller Capital acted as exclusive financial advisor to GTCR and RBI. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. and Goldman Sachs Bank USA arranged debt financing in connection with the transaction.
"The CMA acquisition is an exciting opportunity to continue to build our investment in the cable industry," said GTCR managing director Phil Canfield in a statement. "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.
