CHICAGO -- GTCR, a leading private equity firm, announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the broadband assets of Eagle Communications ("Eagle”). Founded in 1948, and headquartered in Hays, Kansas, Eagle serves customers across Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. Aside from the transferring broadband assets, Eagle also owns and operates a collection of radio stations. The acquisition will be completed through GTCR’s previously established management partnership with Mega Broadband Investments (“MBI”) and comes less than a year after MBI’s initial platform investment in Northland Communications (“Northland”).

The add-on acquisition of Eagle in partnership with a two-time GTCR CEO is another example of the GTCR Leaders Strategy™ at work. GTCR first partnered with Mr. Spencer in 2012 to form Rural Broadband Investments (“RBI”).

In October 2017, GTCR established MBI – a second management start-up with Mr. Spencer – to focus on acquiring rural broadband assets as part of a strategy to capitalize on the same trends that made RBI successful. The acquisition of Eagle follows the previously completed platform acquisition of Northland in October 2018.

“The acquisition of Eagle represents an excellent fit with the existing MBI footprint and strategy,” said Mr. Spencer, CEO of MBI. “Eagle and its employees have built a tremendous reputation as a leader in their local markets and we are excited to bring this talented group into MBI. Further, we plan to build upon Eagle’s strong reputation by investing millions of incremental dollars into network upgrades over the coming year to be able to rollout enhanced high-speed data services to both our residential and commercial customers.”

GTCR and MBI’s investment in Eagle will be funded from GTCR Fund XII, a private equity fund raised in 2017 with $5.25 billion of limited partner capital commitments. Kirkland & Ellis LLP provided legal counsel and PricewaterhouseCoopers served as accounting advisor to GTCR and MBI.

GTCR

Eagle Communications