NEW YORK-Advanced Radio Telecom Corp., a 38 GHz provider of wireless local loop service that went public last year, has registered to sell a public offering of debt and stock-purchase warrants.
In documents filed Jan. 16 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, ART, headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., has proposed to sell $125 million in senior unsecured notes due 2007, with a redemption option that permits it to buy them back as early as 2002.
The filing also envisions the issuance of 125,000 warrants, each of which would enable its owner to purchase 9.024 shares, or an aggregate of 5 percent of the company’s common stock if all warrants are exercised.
Merrill Lynch & Co. and CIBC Wood Gundy Securities Corp., both headquartered in New York, are lead underwriters of the planned securities sale.
“The company intends initially to market its services as a carrier’s carrier in order to leverage ART’s carrier-customers’ sales forces, channels of distribution and customer bases,” ART’s filing with the SEC said. “For example, the company has entered into a strategic distribution agreement with Ameritech Corp. for delivery of its wireless broadband services throughout Ameritech’s Midwest operating region and for certain large customers located outside [this] region … the company expects that a full-scale rollout will begin in the first quarter of 1997.”
ART also said that it is developing proprietary geographic information systems to provide it with three-dimensional digital modeling of all its markets and their buildings and landscape features in order to reduce the time and expense of engineering its planned radio locations.
Once its pending acquisition of 129 38 GHz licenses from CommcoCCC Inc. is complete, ART will own or manage 233 Federal Communications Commission authorizations covering a population of about 156 million people in 169 United States markets. “ART’s footprint will allow it to provide 38 GHz wireless broadband services in 47 of the top 50 markets and 82 of the top 100 markets,” the company said.
