Global Tower Partners expanded its footprint in the Western United States with an agreement to buy 78 towers from Chinook Wireless Communications, a carrier holding 1900 MHz licenses in eight basic trading areas covering more than 1 million people across Montana and part of northern Wyoming.
“The Chinook acquisition is a continuation of our growth strategy into the Western United States,” said Marc Ganzi, chief executive officer of GTP, the nation’s seventh-largest tower company.
Once the deal closes, GTP will own more than 2,000 towers. The company also master leases some 7,700 antenna sites on towers and commercial real estate rooftops. The company built its portfolio largely through acquisitions, including towers from Dobson Cellular Systems Inc., American Cellular Corp., Mesa Communications Group, Tower Resource Management and TCP Communications.
Chinook Wireless formed in 2005, combining Blackfoot Communications Inc., and 3 Rivers Telecommunications Inc. At the time, the carrier said its wireless operations would include networks in Butte, Bozeman, Billings, Helena, Great Falls, Kalispell and Missoula, Mont.
In May, Chinook hired Nokia Corp. to swap out its CDMA network for a GSM/GPRS/EDGE network throughout Montana.
Financial terms of GTP’s deal with Chinook Wireless were not disclosed.
In other tower company news, Crown Castle International Corp. announced that some of its subsidiaries completed refinancing of its $325 million revolving credit facility with a new $1.25 billion senior credit facility consisting of a fully drawn $1 billion term loan set to mature in June 2014 and an undrawn $250 million revolving credit facility set to mature in May 2007.
The company said proceeds of the new loans were used in part to repay its existing revolving credit facility, under which $295 million was outstanding at the time of repayment. In addition, CCI said it plans to use some of the money for its $309 million Mountain Union Telecom purchase, which is expected to close in July.
The rest of the funds are expected to be available for general corporate purposes, including purchases of Crown Castle’s common shares, CCI said.
Based on the impact from the new credit facility, CCI expanded its second-quarter loss per share projection from 5 cents to between 7 and 13 cents per share.
