In the last issue of Red Herring, I wrote a cover story titled The Pragmatics (cannot find the link because the new archives are all fucked up. There is a PDF in my links article section, just in case.) One of the folks which I profiled was Sean Doherty who runs a company called Odyssey Telecorp. He had bought EPIK Communications, a Florida based bandwidth wholesaler and network operator. And today I got the word that he is merging his EPIK with Progress Telecom, a divison of Progress Energy of North Carolina.
The deal is pretty good. The two companies will have about $70 million in revenues, and about $20 million in cash. They have strong network in South Eastern United States and reaches as far up as New York. The regional strategy is pretty smart. With wireless providers and CLECs desperate for bandwidth in that neck of the woods, the two companies together, now known as Progress Telecom would do well. Progress owns 55 percent of the new company, while EPIK owns 45 percent.
it is good to see one of our picks continue to do well.
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4:08 PM PT
[...] It is now positioned with metro circles in fast growth South-East US markets like Florida, Georgia and Virginia. The new fiber aside, Level 3 will be able to add approximately $70 million in revenues and approximately $7 million of annualized positive free cash flow from the PT business. If this deal is going to help Level 3, it is also good news for Sean Doherty, a former @Home executive who was part of my story, The Pragmatics: telecom’s survivors, in the old Red Herring. Sean had started Odyssey back during the telecom bust, at a time when most people were hitting the exits. He had basically decided that because everyone was dumping, and prices were falling, it was time to pick up bargains. He did, and in December 2002 bought his first fiber company, EPIK Communications. Days before that company was going to be auctioned off. In December 2003, he merged EPIK with Progress Telecom. Funnily enough, Sean had once told me that he actually got paid to take EPIK off the investors hand. Well, three years and patience has turned that into a whole lotta dollars. [...]
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