Private equity firm GTCR has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Northland Communications through GTCR's portfolio company Mega Broadband Investments. Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Seattle, Northland provides high-speed data, video, and voice services to residential and business subscribers in rural markets in the Southeast, Texas, and the Northwest.
Mega Broadband Investments was formed in October 2017 as a partnership between Phil Spencer and GTCR. Spencer is MBI's CEO. Previously, Spencer was CEO of Rural Broadband Investments, a GTCR-funded rural cable provider that was acquired in May 2017 by Cable ONE (NYSE:CABO).
"The acquisition of Northland Communications is a great first step and provides us with an excellent platform to build upon," said Spencer. "Northland has laid the groundwork by beginning network upgrades that will give us state-of-the-art infrastructure through which to roll out enhanced high-speed data services to both our residential and commercial customers. Further, Northland has an outstanding employee base, and we plan to continue building upon the excellent work they have done to date while investing tens of millions of incremental dollars into the network over the course of our first year of ownership."
"Along with the rest of my executive team, I want to thank all the Northland employees for the success we have had at Northland over the last 37 years," said John Whetzell, founder of Northland. "We have enjoyed a tremendous run, and I am excited to watch the organization continue to thrive under GTCR's ownership and Phil's leadership."
GTCR and MBI's investment in Northland will be funded from GTCR Fund XII, a private equity fund raised in 2017 with $5.25 billion of limited partner capital commitments.