Birch Communications secures $17M from Wells Fargo Bank

Birch Communications on Tuesday secured $17 million in new financing from Wells Fargo Bank, increasing its senior credit facility by $8 million.

Wells Fargo joins Bank of America as one of its main lenders something that the CLEC said it helps affirm its business model.

"The progress in our financing initiatives underscores the fact that the financial markets continue to be confident in Birch's fundamental stability and growth potential," said Vincent Oddo, CEO of Birch Communications, in a release announcing the new funding.

In recent months, Birch has been actively gaining more funding in addition to expanding product sets and its network.

After completing the refinancing of its senior and subordinated credit facilities in July, the CLEC got a $110 million cash infusion from Bank of America. Part of that included an "accordion" element that allows it to increase funds as needed. It also secured a $7.5 million equipment financing deal with CIT Vendor Finance.

As it continues to secure more funding, the CLEC has been continually growing its product sets and expanding its network reach, particularly in the Florida market, via the acquisition of three CLECs: DayStar Communications, AstroTel and Cordia. All of these deals immediately expanded its own facilities-based IP network reach under its tuck-in purchase strategy that's focused on buying complementary assets.

With its recent acquisition of DayStar Communications, Birch expanded its presence in a number of southwest Florida markets and other areas in the southeastern United States.

Besides M&A, the service provider has also been actively expanding its product portfolio with a new wholesale services arm and developing merchant services for its SMB customer base.

For more:
- see the release

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