The acquisition of Viatel - a subsidiary of Ireland's Digiweb Group - will equip the group with Pan-European intercity and metro fibre capability via an 8,400km fibre network across eight countries. It will also add 12 metro networks, seven data centres and connectivity to 81 on-net buildings.
The deal also includes two wholly-owned subsea cable systems that will provide connectivity to two of Europe’s busiest routes – London to Amsterdam and London to Paris.
According to Zayo, the acquired Viatel businesses are highly aligned with its existing product and customer set, including a higher proportion of dark fibre revenue.
“Viatel’s long-haul fiber network and colo assets combined with Zayo’s existing national UK, France and US networks provides truly international, seamless connectivity for Zayo’s existing and new customers,” said Dan Caruso, chairman and CEO of Zayo. “Our Pan-European infrastructure capability addresses new growth opportunities, including connectivity to key subsea cable systems delivering traffic to and from high-growth regions such as Asia and Africa.”
Colm Piercy, CEO of Viatel, said: “The combination of Zayo and Viatel will provide far greater network reach and growth potential for Viatel’s customers. We will continue to offer leading voice, data and hosting solutions in Ireland.”
In addition, Zayo Group has reorganised its corporate structure into two principal operating units – strategic business segments and global sales and customer success.
Managed by Chris Morley, the strategic business segments unit will consist of dark fibre solutions, network connectivity services and colocation and cloud infrastructure.
The global sales and customer success unit, led by co-COO Matt Erickson, will consist of strategic marketing and alliances, sales, solutions engineering, IT, big data, billing and client services and security.
The company also announced a series of appointments: Karl Maier will replace outgoing-David Howson as president of international. Reporting to Maier are Alastair Kane, managing director of Zayo UK and Ireland, Florian Du Boys, CEO of Zayo France and Bruce Garrison, senior director of Global Reach.
Chris Yost will replace Scott Beer as interim general counsel while Stephanie Copeland, president of zColo has resigned.
“Today’s announcement represents the next step in Zayo’s evolution,” said Dan Caruso, its CEO. “Over the past eight years, we’ve grown from a startup to an almost $1.5 billion revenue bandwidth infrastructure leader. These changes will accelerate our positive momentum and intensify our focus on key global opportunities."
