UPDATED 13:40 EDT / MARCH 21 2012

Zayo Acquisitions do a Double Take: Arialink Buy Beefs Up Networking Rivalries

The networking industry’s M&A scene has been very active recently, with several major deals announced throughout the past few weeks. The Zayo Group, a fiber infrastructure solutions provider, can now account for not one but two of those items.

This morning, shortly after a previous deal was revealed by the company, we learned that Zayo has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Arialink, one of the largest fiber optics services firm in Michigan. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Arialink has built a great business by extending their fiber-based Ethernet network to key businesses and government agencies in Michigan,” says Glenn Russo, Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development for Zayo Group. “We have worked with Arialink for some time and adding their reach to Zayo’s national network will allow us to offer a broader range of solutions to our collective customers.”

The Arialink transaction will likely be a pretty big one, though it’s probably dwarfed by yesterday’s news. Zayo is buying out AboveNet for $2.2 billion, although the deal is still a few steps away from being finalized.  Not surprisingly, AboveNet is in the same business as Arialink and their soon-to-be parent company.

Networking is a huge industry that is getting even bigger thanks to trends such as the cloud, mobile and big data, all three of which correlate in different areas. And it’s not just Zayo that’s growing its presence in this increasingly lucrative market: Broadcom and Cisco are beefing up as well. The former is in the process of buying BroadLight, and its considerably larger competitor revealed the $5 billion agreement to buy NDS just a few days beforehand.


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