Mergers and Acquisitions, Private equity

Crown Castle Acquires Wilcon Fiber Optics, Data Centers for $600M

Jon A DeLuca
Jon A DeLuca

Crown Castle International is acquiring Wilcon, a provider of fiber optic and data center infrastructure on the U.S. west coast. The majority seller was Pamlico Capital, a midmarket private equity firm. Jon A. DeLuca, president and CEO of Wilcon, confirmed the deal in a prepared statement.

Crown Castle paid about $600 million f0r Wilcon. During the first year of the deal, Crown Castle expects Wilcon to contribute $40 million in gross margin.

Crown Castle claims to be the largest U.S. provider of wireless infrastructure. The company specializes in cell towers, rooftop installations, small cell solutions, and fiber for carriers. Crown Castle has about 40,000 towers and 26,500 route miles of fiber supporting small cells.

Wilcon, meanwhile, manages over 3,000 route miles of fiber connecting close to 1,000 enterprise locations, data centers, cell towers and Internet hubs in southern California. Wilcon, founded in 1998, also claims to support roughly 300 service providers. Wilcon’s services include Ethernet, Optical Wavelength, Interconnection, Direct Internet Access (DIA), Colocation, Dark Fiber, and Cloud Access, the company says.

The Bank Street Group along with Alston & Bird LLP advised Wilcon and Pamlico on the deal.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.