Cincinnati Bell To Sell Wireless Spectrum Licenses To Verizon Wireless

(RTTNews) - Cincinnati Bell (CBB), a provider of telecommunications and broadband networking services, Monday said it has agreed to sell its wireless spectrum licenses to Verizon Wireless (VZ) for $210 million in cash. Cincinnati Bell believes investing in wireless business has become economically challenging.

Under the deal, the wireless spectrum licenses will be sold for $194 million and Verizon will assume certain tower lease obligations. The total value of the deal is estimated to be 4.5 and 6.0 times CBW'S adjusted EBITDA consensus wireless estimates in 2014 and 2015, respectively.CBW expects to continue to provide wireless service for 8-12 months from the time of signing.

With this deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2014, CBW expects to incur certain overhead and shared service costs attributable to its wireless operations.

At the same time, Verizon Wireless reported signing a deal to assign its rights to buy the spectrum licenses being sold by Cincinnati Bell to Grain Management, LLC. Pursuant to this, Verizon Wireless will lease certain of the spectrum licenses from Grain Management.