|
COPYRIGHT 2002 Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News
By Bruce Spence, The Record, Stockton, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Jun. 30--In 1999, fresh from an infusion of nearly a quarter billion dollars in cash from a group of several new buyers, a bond sale and an initial public stock offering, Pac-West Telecomm set its sights on the big picture: the American West.
The company, created in 1980 in Stockton, would spread its sophisticated telephone and Internet services network beyond Stockton, Sacramento, Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego, to Portland and Seattle, to Reno and Las Vegas, to Phoenix, Denver and Salt Lake City.
"The investment community said telecom is a scale business, and you had to have a large footprint for it to work," Wally Griffin, Pac-West Telecomm CEO and one of the 1998 buyers.
"And the opportunity looked right," he added.
In September 1998, Griffin and four investment groups had bought an 84 percent interest in Pac-West, with nearly $74 million going to the two owners at that time and more than $38 million dedicated for future expansion.
Four months later, the new owners also sold $150 million in high-yield bonds to pay off a $77 million bridge loan partially used to buy the company and put $73 million more toward expansion.
They also raised another $125 million with an initial public stock offering in November 1999.
"We considered ourselves fully funded for the expansion."
But that vision didn't hold long because times -- and business conditions -- changed hard.
This just a few months before a growing technology bust...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
