Rochester Business Journal

American Fiber Systems Inc. in Brighton has agreed to be acquired by Colorado-based Zayo Group LLC, officials said early Wednesday.

Terms of the deal were not publicly disclosed. However, a knowledgeable source said AFS fetched between $185 million and $190 million.

Scott Reardon, Zayo vice president of corporate development, disputed the purchase figure, but declined to state the amount, citing a confidentiality agreement.

Founded in 2000 by David Rusin, a former president of Frontier Communications Inc., the privately held AFS provides dark and lit fiber to businesses.

Dark-fiber hook-ups are connections to a fiber-optic network in which the company leasing space on the fiber network is responsible for its own network connections. In lit-fiber connections, the company running the network is responsible for supplying and maintaining connecting equipment.

Ignoring big metropolitan markets such as New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, AFS achieved a measure of success concentrated on small and midsize metropolitan areas that others ignored. Over a decade, it has built and bought some 800 route miles fiber-optic cable in Atlanta; Boise, Idaho; Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.; Nashville, Tenn.; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Kansas City; Salt Lake City; and Cleveland.

Privately held Zayo has fiber-optic networks in 23 states, serving 141 markets, including 55 metropolitan markets in the Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Minnesota and Iowa. 
 
“The addition of AFS’ markets significantly increases the geographic scope of the bandwidth infrastructure services that Zayo offers to its customers,” said Dan Caruso, Zayo president and CEO, in a statement.

Assuming the deal wins regulators’ approval, the sale is expected to close in 90 days.

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