McLeodUSA Inc. Thursday revealed that it has sold two of its PCS licenses
and has secured agreements to sell its remaining licenses to four buyers for
more than $100 million. The company plans to reinvest the proceeds in its
core operations.
The company had been working to roll out a wireless network and a fiber
network simultaneously. The sales appear to indicate a shift to a narrower
focus on the fiber rollout.
McLeodUSA has both Block D and E licenses of 10-20 MHz — covering markets
in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota — which it picked
up in January 1997 for about $30 million.
The buyers include U.S. Cellular Corp., TeleCorp. PCS, HickoryTech Corp. and
Midwest Wireless.
“When we spoke with our financial analysts and key investors on Feb. 21, we
indicated that there are both opportunities and challenges in our forecast
for 2001,” said Steve Gray, president and co-chief executive officer of
McLeodUSA. “An opportunity has been realized with this sale of our wireless
licenses. We will continue to evaluate other non-core assets to determine
the value, both operationally and economically, to the core business of
McLeodUSA.”
The company completed the sale of two licenses in April. Terms of the
transactions were not disclosed. The company anticipates closing the rest of
the sales over the remainder of 2001, but they are still subject to FCC and
Hart-Scott-Rodino approval.
Denver-based media and telecommunications mergers and acquisitions
specialist Daniels & Associates represented McLeodUSA in the sales.