Louisville's Zayo buying up telecom companies.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: TECHNOLOGY - Zayo Group

Founded in 2007, the Zayo Group has been on an acquisition spree that includes 14 deals for telecom companies--and counting.

Since the launch, John Scarano, president and COO of the 380-person company, has personally racked up 200,000 frequent flier miles a year chasing down about 50 targeted acquisitions. The strategy is simple: It's a good time to buy.

Implementation has been more involved. "The approach was twofold," Scarano says. "We identified and pursued about 50 small businesses. The second part was to raise the capital," accomplished via about a dozen private-equity deals worth $225 million in all, plus another $85 million in debt financing.

The Louisville-based Zayo Group is an umbrella company that includes Zayo Bandwidth - focusing on providing fiber-based bandwidth and other infrastructure to large wireline and wireless carriers and other large users - and Zayo Enterprise Network, offering services to the private sector; zColo (colocation); and Onvoy Voice Services, a traditional phone services provider.

Guided by former Level 3 execs, including Scarano and CEO Dan Caruso, Zayo's approach is to get great value for distressed prices.

"Most of Zayo's networks were acquired for about a third of...