Canadian rural broadband provider Xplornet Communications has completed a C$158m private financing.
The funding was split between C$148m of new debt and equity and a C$10m debt refinancing.
Proceeds are to be used to improve its national 4G wireless…
Canadian rural broadband provider Xplornet Communications has completed a C$158m private financing.
The funding was split between C$148m of new debt and equity and a C$10m debt refinancing.
Proceeds are to be used to improve its national 4G wireless and satellite broadband networks. The company recently announced that it had more than 200,000 rural broadband subscribers and needs to enhance its network to support this expansion.
Xplornet’s last significant funding round took place back in June 2012 when it raised C$125m through a private funding round from its existing investors, including private equity firms Sandler Capital Management, Catalyst Investors and Werklund Capital Corporation.
As with this latest transaction, the financing was split between debt and equity and proceeds were used to expand the company’s overall network capacity. In total, Xplornet has raised more than C$600m in private funding.
To provide its satellite broadband service, Xplornet has leasing contracts with both ViaSat and Hughes Network Systems.
The Canadian company controls the entire Canadian capacity of the ViaSat-1 Ka-band satellite, having signed a C$262m leasing agreement with ViaSat-1’s manufacturer Space Systems Loral in January 2010.
Xplornet signed a similar deal with Hughes in 2009 that saw it lease 100% of the Canadian capacity, approximately 14 Gbps, on Echostar-17 in deal worth more than US$100m.
The company was not available for comment on further details of the transaction.