GTT Communications said it has agreed to sell its infrastructure division to investment group I Squared Capital for USD 2.15 billion. GTT interim CEO Ernie Ortega said the divestment will enable the company to better focus on network investment and the development of high-speed infrastructure services. It will also reinforce GTT’s capex light business model and its strategy to develop cloud networking.
The sale includes that the business and activities that provide European, North American, sub-sea and trans-Atlantic fibre network and data centre infrastructure services. The division is made up of a number of network and data centre assets accumulated from several GTT acquisitions, including Interoute, Hibernia and KPN International.
Specifically, GTT is selling a 103,000 route km fibre network with over 400 points of presence, spanning 31 metro areas and interconnecting 103 cities across Europe and North America; three transatlantic subsea cables, including GTT Express between Europe and North America, 14 tier 3 data centres and over 100 colocation facilities; plus a full suite of telecom and data infrastructure services.
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of next year. GTT announced at the end of 2019 that it had hired advisers to look into asset sales, and several investment funds reportedly looked at the company's business. I Squared is a specialised investor in infrastructure, including utilities, telecom and energy, active in the Americas, Asia and Europe.
