Venture-backed fiber provider Zayo Group has completed its initial public offering. The company’s stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ZAYO ticker symbol last Friday, when it rose 17% in its first day of trading.
Zayo offered about 24 million shares of common stock at $19 a share, of which about 21 million were sold by the company and 8 million by stockholders. The company said that it plans to use the funds for general purposes including paying off debt, capital expenditures and acquisitions.
The actual IPO price per share was slightly lower than Zayo had originally anticipated, which was between $21-$24 per share. However, despite recent market volatility, Zayo’s stock quickly rose above $22 per share and has stayed there in its first week of trading.
Zayo’s offerings include both ‘dark’ fiber, where its customers manage their own fiber connections, and lit fiber, in which Zayo provides the fiber control equipment. Verizon Wireless has reportedly been particularly interested in dark fiber connectivity for its network, while carriers including T-Mobile US have gone the lit fiber route.
During the IPO process, Zayo announced a 93-route-mile expansion of its fiber network in its hometown of Boulder, Colo., that is expected to be complete by the end of this year – and it says the expanded network is able to provide speeds ranging up to 1 Terabit.
The company also recently announced an agreement with Vantage Data Centers to expand its Connect to the Cloud program which serves cloud operations including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Rackspace and Microsoft Azure. In addition, it’s colocation division is working on the connection side with participation in a new Florida Internet Exchange (FL-IX) with companies including Netflix and Akamai. The new exchange will serve as a member-managed traffic exchange location that serves the Southeastern U.S. as well as Latin American markets.
