Dark fiber provider Litecast latest Zayo acquisition

Zayo Group LLC will whip out the check book once again, this time to buy Litecast/Balticore, LLC. The Baltimore-based provider of dark fiber and other fiber-optic network services will cost Zayo $22 million in cash on hand.

Litecast owns and operates a metro-Baltimore fiber network that includes more than 110 buildings on-net, including the city's major data centers and carrier hotels. Litecast provides both dark fiber and Ethernet-based services to business and government customers.

Zayo already has infrastructure in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area, thanks to its previous acquisitions of AboveNet and FiberGate (see "Zayo Group to acquire AboveNet" and "FiberGate to be Zayo's latest acquisition"). The agreement to acquire Litecast therefore will extend its current footprint.

"Given its geography and product offering, Litecast is a natural extension of Zayo's recent acquisition of FiberGate," explains Dan Caruso, president and CEO of Zayo Group. "The acquisition completes a very compelling set of fiber assets in the increasingly important Baltimore/Washington metropolitan market."

Zayo expects the transaction, which is subject to the usual approvals, to close by the end of this month. Given Litecast's concentrated network geography, product set, and size, Zayo also anticipates a speedy network and operations integration process.