NEW YORK-Alamosa PCS Holdings Inc., a Sprint PCS affiliate, raised $182.1 million Feb. 3 in a 10.71 million-share initial public offering priced at $17 each, $2 above the maximum it anticipated.
Salomon Smith Barney was lead manager of the IPO.
Headquartered in Lubbock, Texas, the company is building a Code Division Multiple Access network. Established in 1998, it has launched commercial service in 11 markets in Texas and New Mexico and plans to expand into Arizona, Colorado and Wisconsin.
In its territory, Alamosa owns exclusive rights to the Sprint brand. However, Alamosa does not own any radio-frequency licenses and therefore depends on its agreement with Sprint.
The new carrier posted a net loss of $17.7 million on $2 million in revenues for the first nine months of 1999. It also has $157.2 million in debt outstanding under a vendor financing agreement with Nortel Networks.
While operating under the affiliate umbrella of a major nationwide carrier, Alamosa also has some heavyweight competition: Nextel Communications Inc., AT&T Wireless Services Inc., VoiceStream Wireless, the Bell Atlantic Corp.-GTE Corp. combination and the merged SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp.
