Windstream finalizes acquisition of KDL, Norlight

Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) is on a M&A completion roll this week as it wraps up its second acquisition in a week, this time of Q-Comm Corp., a privately-held fiber and competitive service provider.

The completion of its Q-Comm acquisition comes on the heels of its purchase of Hosted Solutions, a cloud services and data center provider.

Under the terms of the $818 million cash and stock agreement, Windstream acquired Q-Comm's subsidiaries Kentucky Data Link (KDL), a fiber service provider, and CLEC Norlight.

For Windstream, the acquisition of Q-Comm is a strategic one. With KDL, Windstream instantly expands its fiber footprint with an additional 30,000 fiber route miles in 23 states and District of Columbia, while Norlight will add to its growing CLEC business with the addition of about 5,500 SMB customers in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

"KDL was a company that we had looked for a while in that they had fiber assets that were complementary to our existing footprint and also had a good success in the fiber to the cell site area, which has been very active as wireless carriers have been looking for more bandwidth carry wireless data in particular," Jeff Gardner said in a previous interview with FierceTelecom. "It was a perfect fit for us and in terms of that we get Norlight along with it."

For more:
- see the release

Related articles:
Jeff Gardner, CEO and President of Windstream on industry consolidation, the future of broadband and business service growth
Windstream's Q-Comm purchase shows broadening of competitive market
Windstream to buy Kentucky Data Link, Norlight
Windstream wraps up Hosted Solutions purchase