Birch Communications, a growing competitive service provider focused on serving the small to medium-sized business (SMB) market, has increased it senior credit capacity to $175 million.
Joining its existing creditors Bank of America, PNC, Wells Fargo and CoBank is Union Bank with a $25 million commitment.
Part of the new line of credit will be used to pay off the company's debt and fund its pending acquisition of network assets from Lightyear Network Solutions.
"I am pleased that this funding will allow us to continue to seek accretive acquisitions, expand our proprietary IP-network and support the expansion of our products and services to better serve our large and growing base of customers," said Vincent M. Oddo, Birch's president and CEO, in a release.
Birch continues to be successful at securing the funding it needs. This latest credit expansion comes after it secured $12 million in funding from CoBank in February, which gave it more capital cash to pursue "accretive acquisitions" of other service providers that fit into its tuck-in purchase strategy.
As it continues to acquire other regional CLECs, Birch has been aggressively expanding its existing IP-based network. Earlier this year, the service provider completed the last phase of its network buildout effort by adding 43 ILEC CO locations for a total of 290 COs, and 15 wireless towers for its wireless loop services in five states.
For more:
- see the release
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