FiberLight raises $13mn from CoBank to fuel smart growth

ATLANTA, USA: FiberLight, LLC, a leading optical transport solutions provider, announced it has raised $13 million from CoBank in the company’s first ever debt offering in the capital markets. The debt is comprised of a $10 million note and a $3 million revolving line of credit.

“FiberLight has demonstrated a financial discipline in the market over the past 4 years that has allowed them to get to this point,” said Jim Lynch, FiberLight Chairman and Managing Partner of Thermo Capital Companies, the primary investor of FiberLight.

“Raising this capital demonstrates the sound fundamentals of FiberLight’s current financial operations and the belief by Thermo and FiberLight’s Board of Directors that the future opportunity to leverage the 500,000 miles of fiber optic network that FiberLight owns is as strong as ever.”

FiberLight’s strength lies in its massive fiber assets throughout the southern half of the United States from Baltimore, Maryland to Miami and west as far as San Francisco.

Large metro networks, typically two to three times the size of traditional competitive telecom operators, have allowed FiberLight to differentiate its product offering with a full portfolio of optical connectivity including dark fiber, Managed Wavelengths, Metro Ethernet from 10MB to 10Gig, and traditional SONET connectivity, as well as leverage this on ramp to the Internet to provide clients faster, more secure and less expensive IP access.

"We want to continue to grow in a responsible way that not only shows the top line compounding 20 percent annually but has a similar growth in our EBITDA. The only way our company can do that is by owning our own fiber assets, delivering a great customer experience to our enterprise, carrier and government clients and to continue to create an opportunity to enhance productivity.

"The money raised will be used for those three things and will be allocated only through a rigorous capital allocation process in which projects must demonstrate the strict payback model that has allowed FiberLight to exceed industry averages in growth and profitability throughout its history,” FiberLight President Kevin B. Coyne said.

"FiberLight has not strayed from our laser focus on the optical transport services market, and it is our mission to continue to lead our markets in this segment. This capital will help us continue to do that."

CoBank is a leading capital provider to the Communications Sector. The Communications Group, led by Senior Vice President Robert West, Eastern Regional Manager John Cole, and Relationship Manager Kevin Oliver, structured the deal.

“We are excited about being able to be a meaningful provider of capital to a growing and leading optical transport solutions provider like FiberLight,” said Kevin Oliver. “FiberLight supports CoBank’s mission of providing capital to support enhanced communication services throughout our great nation, and we are thrilled to be a part of the company’s continuing success story.”

FiberLight’s LightSource Products will allow customers to transport data from one location to another in ultrafast, secure and efficient ways. Not encumbered by traditional voice oriented networking restrictions, FiberLight’s dense fiber access allows organizations to lower the cost of transport and improve overall reliability of operations.