Crown Castle International Announces Proposed Additional Securitized Notes
From: RCR Wireless Stockwatch
Crown Castle International Corp. (CCI) announced today that certain of its indirect subsidiaries intend to offer, in a private transaction, up to $1.9 billion of Senior Secured Tower Revenue Notes (“Offered Notes”), as additional debt securities under the existing Indenture dated as of June 1, 2005 (“Indenture”), pursuant to which the Senior Secured Tower Revenue Notes, Series 2005-1 (“Series 2005-1 Notes”), and the Senior Secured Tower Revenue Notes, Series 2006-1, were issued. The subsidiaries expected to issue the Offered Notes are special purpose entities that are the current issuers under the Indenture and that hold over half of the U.S. and Puerto Rico towers of Crown Castle. Crown Castle expects that all of the Offered Notes will be rated investment grade. The servicing and repayment of the Offered Notes are expected to be made solely from the cash flow from the operation of the U.S. towers that are part of the transaction.
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Nuance Acquires SpinVox, Accelerates Expansion of Voice-to-Text Business
Nuance Communications, Inc. announced on December 30 that it has acquired SpinVox, a leading provider of voice-to-text services to telecommunications companies across five continents. By integrating SpinVox’s carrier services with Nuance’s advanced speech recognition platform, Nuance will further accelerate the growth of its voice-to-text business and scale to meet the needs of a growing, global customer base.
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Ciena has Canadian approval to buy Nortel Networks assets
From: The Washington Post
Ciena said on December 30 that it has received a clearance from the Canadian government in the firm’s bid to acquire part of that country’s defunct tech firm, Nortel Networks.
The merged company would be the largest of its kind in North America and the third largest worldwide, behind France’s Lucent and China’s Huawei.
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Vodafone buys Turkish operator
From: Benzinga
Vodafone Group Plc, the largest wireless carrier in the world by revenue, is reportedly buying the entire stake in the Turkish fixed-line voice and Internet service provider Borusan Telekom. However, the UK-based telecom titan has not provided financial details of the deal. The acquisition is subject to the approval of the Competition Board and the Capital Markets Board of Turkey.
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Brocade Plans $600M HY Deal
From: Leveraged Finance News
Brocade Communications Systems, a San Jose, Calif.-based manufacturer of networking equipment for computers, is looking to sell as much as $600 million in senior secured notes, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The company said it will use $150 million of the proceeds, along with cash on hand, to retire about $173 million of outstanding 2.25% subordinated convertible notes when they come due in February. The rest will be used to pay down part of an outstanding term loan.
In October of 2008, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley underwrote $400 million in senior notes due 2014. The proceeds from that deal were used to help finance Brocade’s acquisition of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Foundry Networks.
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Level 3 to Offer $640M in HY Bonds
From: Leveraged Finance News
Level 3 Communications added $640 million to the high yield pipeline, bringing the total in proposed junk deals to $3.84 billion. The Broomfield, Colo.-based communications services company said it plans to issue $640 million in senior notes due 2018; lead underwriter Bank of America Merrill Lynch could price the deal as early as today.
Level 3 is issuing the notes in order to finance a tender offer for $550 million in 12.25% senior notes due 2013. The tender offer has an early tender date of Jan. 19 and expires on Feb. 2 unless extended or terminated. BofA and Citi are the dealer managers for the offer.
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