High Point-based Lumos is being sold for $2 billion to a joint venture that includes T-Mobile, which will invest $1 billion into the company.
The company has been expanding its high-speed fiber internet cable operations throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states and currently provides service to 320,000 customers and has more than 7,500 miles of cable.
The joint venture will be between EQT, Sweden’s largest private-equity group that manages more than $220 billion in assets, and T-Mobile. EQT bought the former North State Telephone in High Point in 2020 and merged it with Waynesboro, Virginia-based Lumos.
“We always say that we’re not just ‘providing internet,’ we’re changing people’s lives,” said Lumos CEO Brian Stading in a statement. “That’s why we are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with T-Mobile and leverage the strength of the T-Mobile brand and incredible customer experience to extend our 100% fiber internet network to more homes and businesses than ever before.”
Stading said the company now has a goal of providing internet service to 2 million by 2026. When Business North Carolina wrote about the company last year, the goal was 1 million by 2026.
The joint venture will focus on market identification and selection, network engineering and design, network deployment and customer installation. Nirav Shah, a partner at EQT’s Infrastructure Advisory Team, says T-Mobile’s sales and marketing operations will help the company reach that 2 million goal.
T-Mobile’s 5G Internet is currently available to more than 50 million households and businesses nationwide and now serves over 5 million customers.
The transaction is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.
Both T-Mobile and the EQT Infrastructure VI fund are each expected to invest approximately $1 billion to acquire Lumos. T-Mobile will also acquire existing Lumos customers at the close for a predetermined fee.
T-Mobile, in a separate statement, said it will initially invest approximately $950 million in the joint venture to acquire a 50% equity stake and all existing fiber customers, with the funds invested by T-Mobile being used by Lumos for future fiber builds.
T-Mobile will then invest approximately $500 million between 2027 and 2028.
Lumos is the successor of the old High Point Telephone Exchange, which local businessmen had formed in 1895. It became North State Telephone in 1905 and was led by the Hayden and Tucker families for most of the next century.