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EX-31.1 - EX-31.1 - Zayo Group Holdings, Inc.zayo-20170630ex311b715dd.htm
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EX-21.1 - EX-21.1 - Zayo Group Holdings, Inc.zayo-20170630ex211ad938c.htm

 

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017

OR

TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

Commission File Number: 001-36690

Zayo Group Holdings, Inc.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

 

 

 

DELAWARE

26-1398293

(State or other jurisdiction of

incorporation or organization)

(I.R.S. Employer

Identification No.)

 

 

1805 29th Street, Suite 2050,

Boulder, CO 80301

(Address of Principal Executive Offices)

(303) 381-4683

(Registrant’s Telephone Number, Including Area Code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Title of Each Class

Name of Exchange on Which Registered

Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share

New York Stock Exchange

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.

Yes  ☒    No ☐ 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act.

Yes  ☐  No   ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes ☒     No ☐ 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§ 229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.    ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Large accelerated filer

  

  

Accelerated filer

 

 

 

 

 

Non-accelerated filer

 

☐  (Do not check if a smaller reporting company)

 

Smaller reporting company

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emerging growth company

 

 

 

 

 

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ¨☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

As of December 31, 2016, the aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $6.0 billion based on the closing price as reported on the New York Stock Exchange.

As of August 17, 2017, the number of outstanding shares of common stock of Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. was 246,484,108 shares. 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the registrant’s Definitive Proxy Statement for the 2017 Annual Meeting of Stockholders are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Form 10-K.

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

INDEX

 

 

 

 

 

GLOSSARY OF TERMS 

 

i

 

 

 

 

 

PART I. 

 

 

    

 

Item 1. 

 

BUSINESS

 

1

Item 1A. 

 

RISK FACTORS

 

16

Item 1B. 

 

UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

 

30

Item 2. 

 

PROPERTIES

 

30

Item 3. 

 

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

 

30

Item 4. 

 

MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURE

 

30

 

 

 

 

 

PART II. 

 

 

 

 

Item 5. 

 

MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

 

31

Item 6. 

 

SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

 

33

Item 7. 

 

MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

 

34

Item 7A. 

 

QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK

 

65

Item 8. 

 

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

 

66

Item 9. 

 

CHANGES IN AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH ACCOUNTANTS ON ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE

 

66

Item 9A. 

 

CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES

 

66

Item 9B 

 

OTHER INFORMATION

 

67

 

 

 

 

 

PART III. 

 

 

 

 

Item 10. 

 

DIRECTORS, EXECUTIVE OFFICERS, AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

 

68

Item 11. 

 

EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION

 

68

Item 12. 

 

SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF CERTAIN BENEFICIAL OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT AND RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS

 

68

Item 13. 

 

CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED TRANSACTIONS, AND DIRECTOR INDEPENDENCE

 

68

Item 14. 

 

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTING FEES AND SERVICES

 

68

 

 

 

 

 

PART IV. 

 

 

 

 

Item 15 

 

EXHIBITS AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULES

 

69

 

 

 

 

 

SIGNATURES 

 

72

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Our industry uses many terms and acronyms that may not be familiar to you. To assist you in reading this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we have provided definitions of some of these terms below.

Bandwidth infrastructure—Dark fiber, mobile infrastructure and lit bandwidth services provided over fiber networks, and datacenter‑based colocation and interconnection services. Fiber‑based bandwidth infrastructure services that are lit (i.e., provided by using optronics that “light” the fiber) include wavelengths, Ethernet, IP and SONET; fiber‑based services that are not lit are sold as dark fiber capacity. Datacenter‑based bandwidth infrastructure services include colocation (space and power) as well as interconnection within facilities.

Capacity—The information‑carrying ability of a telecommunications service. Below is a list of some common units of capacity for various lit bandwidth services:

1G, 2.5G, 10G, 40G and 100G—Data communication circuits capable of transmitting over Wavelengths at 1G, 2.5G, 10G, 40G, and 100G, respectively.

10Mb and 100Mb—Data communication circuits capable of transmitting over Ethernet at 10 Mb and 100 Mb, respectively.

Carrier—A provider of communications services that commonly include voice, data, and Internet services.

Carrier hotel—A building containing many carriers, and other telecommunications service providers that are widely interconnected. These facilities generally have high‑capacity power service, backup batteries and generators, fuel storage, riser cable systems, large cooling capability, and advanced fire suppression systems.

Cellular tower—An outdoor structure primarily used to attach and house antennae used by wireless carriers to aggregate and transmit mobile voice and data.

CLEC—Competitive local exchange carrier; provides local telecommunications services in competition with the ILEC.

Colocation—The housing of transport equipment, other communications equipment, servers and storage devices within the same location. Operators of these colocation facilities typically also sell interconnection services to their customers, enabling them to cross connect with other customers located within the same facility and/or with Bandwidth Infrastructure providers.

Conduit—A pipe usually made of metal, ceramic, or plastic that protects buried fiber optic cables.

Cybersecurity— Preventative techniques used to protect the integrity of networks, programs and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access.

Dark fiber—Fiber that has not yet been connected to telecommunications transmission equipment or optronics and, therefore, has not yet been activated or “lit” by the fiber cable owner.

Datacenter—A facility used to house computer systems, backup storage devices, routers, services and other Internet and other telecommunications equipment. Datacenters generally have environmental controls (air conditioning, fire suppression, etc.), redundant/backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections and high security.

DWDM—Dense wavelength-division multiplexing. The term “dense” refers to the number of channels being multiplexed. A DWDM system typically has the capability to multiplex up to 40 wavelength channels.

Ethernet—The standard local area network (LAN) protocol. Ethernet was originally specified to connect devices on a company or home network as well as to a cable modem or DSL modem for Internet access. Due to its ubiquity in the LAN, Ethernet has become a popular transmission protocol in metropolitan, regional and long haul networks as well.

Fiber—Fiber, or fiber optic cables, are thin filaments of glass through which light beams are transmitted over long distances.

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Fiber miles—The number of route miles in a network multiplied by the number of fiber strands within each cable on the network. For example, if a ten‑mile network segment has a 144 count fiber installed, it would represent a 10x144 or 1,440 fiber miles.

Fiber‑to‑the‑Tower or FTT—The connection of cellular towers to the wider terrestrial network via fiber connections.

G—Gigabits per second, a measure of telecommunications transmission speed. One gigabit equals one billion bits of information.

ILEC—Incumbent local exchange carrier; a traditional telecommunications provider that, prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, had the exclusive right and responsibility for providing local telecommunications services in its local service area.

Interconnection service—A service that is used to connect two customers who are located within a single building or within a single colocation space using either fiber or other means.

IP—Internet protocol; the transmission protocol used in the transmission of data over the Internet.

IRU and IRU contract—Indefeasible right of use. The exclusive, unrestricted, and indefeasible right to use one, a pair, or more strands of fiber of a fiber cable. IRU contracts are typically long‑term in nature (20 years) and may or may not contain restrictions on the use of the fiber by the lessee.

ISP—Internet service provider; provides access to the Internet for consumers and businesses.

Mb—Megabits per second; a measure of telecommunications transmission speed. One megabit equals one million bits of information.

Meet‑Me Room—A physical location in a building, usually a datacenter or carrier hotel, where voice carriers, Internet service providers, data service providers and others physically interconnect so that traffic can be passed between their respective networks. At any given colocation facility or datacenter, network owners may also be able to interconnect outside the Meet‑Me Room.

Mobile switching centers—Buildings where wireless service providers house their Internet routers and voice switching equipment.

Object-Based Storage— A cost effective data storage service which manages data as objects and has the ability to store large volumes of unstructured data.

OC—Optical carrier level; a measure of the transmission rate of optical telecommunications traffic. For example, OC‑3 corresponds to 155 Mb. See the definition of “Capacity,” above.

On‑net—Describes a location or service that is directly and fully supported by fiber.

Optronics—Various types of equipment that are commonly used to light fiber. Optronics include systems that are capable of providing wavelength, Ethernet, IP, SONET, and other service over fiber optic cable.

POP—Point‑of‑presence; a location in a building separate from colocation facilities and datacenters that houses equipment used to provide telecom or Bandwidth Infrastructure services.

Private cloud— A type of cloud computing that involves a distinct and secure cloud-based computing environment dedicated to a single organization.

Private line—Dedicated private bandwidth circuit that generally utilizes SONET, Ethernet and Wavelength technology used to connect various locations.

Route miles—The length, measured in non‑overlapping miles, of a fiber network. That is the actual number of miles that a network cable traverses. Route miles are distinct from fiber miles (see fiber miles definition).

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Small cell—A location other than a cellular tower or building that is used to attach an antennae used by a wireless carriers to aggregate and transmit mobile voice and data. Typically, the location is a light pole, traffic light, or other small separate purpose structure.

SONET—Synchronous optical network; a network protocol traditionally used to support private line services. This protocol enables transmission of voice, data and video at high speeds. Protected SONET networks provide for virtually instantaneous restoration of service in the event of a fiber cut or equipment failure.

Switch—An electronic device that selects the path that voice, data and Internet traffic take or use on a network.

Transport—A dedicated telecommunication service to move data, Internet, voice, video or wireless traffic from one location to another.

Wavelength—A channel of light that carries telecommunications traffic through the process of wavelength‑division multiplexing.

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PART I

ITEM 1. BUSINESS

Overview

Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. (the “Company”, “we” or “us”) is a large and fast growing provider of bandwidth infrastructure in the United States, Canada and Europe. Our products and services enable mission-critical, high-bandwidth applications, such as cloud-based computing, video, mobile, social media, machine-to-machine connectivity, and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Key products include leased dark fiber, fiber to cellular towers and small cell sites, dedicated wavelength connections, Ethernet, IP connectivity, cloud services and other high-bandwidth offerings. We provide our services over a unique set of dense metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks and through our interconnect-oriented data center facilities. Our fiber networks and data center facilities are critical components of the overall physical network architecture of the Internet and private networks. Our customer base includes some of the largest and most sophisticated consumers of bandwidth infrastructure services, such as wireless service providers; telecommunications service providers; financial services companies; social networking, media, and web content companies; education, research, and healthcare institutions; and governmental agencies. We typically provide our bandwidth infrastructure services for a fixed monthly recurring fee under contracts that vary between one and twenty years in length.  We operate our business with a unique focus on capital allocation and financial performance with the ultimate goal of maximizing equity value for our stockholders. Our core values center on partnership, alignment, and transparency with our three primary constituent groups - employees, customers, and stockholders.

We were founded in 2007 with the investment thesis of building a bandwidth infrastructure platform to take advantage of the favorable Internet, data, and wireless growth trends driving the on-going demand for bandwidth infrastructure, and to be an active participant in the consolidation of the industry. The growth of cloud-based computing, video, mobile and social media applications, machine-to-machine connectivity, and other bandwidth-intensive applications continues to drive rapidly increasing consumption of bandwidth on a global basis. As an early believer in the enduring nature of these trends, we assembled our asset base and built a business model specifically to provide high-bandwidth connectivity to customers whose businesses depend most on the continuous and growing demand for bandwidth. As a core tenet of our strategy for capitalizing on these industry trends, we have been a leading industry consolidator and have acquired 41 bandwidth infrastructure businesses and assets to date. Our owned, secure, and redundant fiber network and data centers serve as the foundation for our bandwidth solutions and allow us to offer customers dark fiber solutions, network connectivity and colocation and cloud infrastructure services. We believe the continuously growing demand for stable and secure bandwidth from service providers, enterprises and consumers, combined with our unique and dense metro, regional, and long-haul networks, position us as a mission-critical infrastructure supplier to the largest users of bandwidth.

Our network footprint includes both large and small metro geographies, the extended suburban regions of many cities, and the large rural, national and international links that connect our metro networks. We believe that our network assets would be difficult to replicate given the geographic reach, network density, and capital investment required. As of June 30, 2017, our fiber networks span over 123,841 route miles and 10,438,246 fiber miles (representing an average of 84 fibers per route), serve 391 geographic markets in the United States, Canada and Europe, and connect to approximately 31,000 buildings, including approximately 7,500 cellular towers and 1,141 data centers. We own fiber networks in large metro areas, such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, and London, as well as smaller metro areas, such as Allentown, Pennsylvania, Fargo, North Dakota, and Spokane, Washington. Our networks allow us to provide our high-bandwidth infrastructure services to our customers over redundant fiber facilities between key customer locations.  We believe our ownership and the location and density of our expansive network footprint allow us to more competitively service our target customers’ bandwidth infrastructure needs at the local, regional, national, and international level relative to other regional bandwidth infrastructure service providers or long-haul carriers. We also provide our network-neutral colocation and interconnection services utilizing our own data centers located within major carrier hotels and other strategic buildings in 49 locations throughout the United States, Canada and Europe and operate approximately 870,000 square feet of billable colocation space.

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The density and geographic reach of our network footprint allow us to provide tailored bandwidth infrastructure solutions on our own network (“on-net”) that address the current and future bandwidth needs of our customers. Our dense metro and regional networks have high fiber counts that enable us to provide our dark fiber solutions, network connectivity and colocation and cloud infrastructure services. Our networks are deep and scalable, meaning we have spare fiber, conduit access rights and/or rights of way rights that allow us to continue to add capacity to our network as our existing and new customers’ demand for our services increases. In addition, many of our core network technologies provide capacity through which we can continue to add wavelengths to our network without consuming additional fiber. We also believe the density and diversity of our networks provide a strong and growing competitive barrier to protect our existing revenue base. We believe our networks provide significant opportunity to organically connect to new customer locations, data centers, towers, or small cell locations to help us achieve an attractive return on our capital deployed. Since our founding, we have assembled a large portfolio of fiber networks and colocation assets through both acquisitions and customer demand-driven investments in property and equipment. From our inception to date, we have completed acquisitions with an aggregate purchase consideration, net of cash acquired, totaling approximately $6.5 billion. For the period from July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2017, we also invested approximately $2.1 billion in capital expenditures, exclusive of acquisitions and stimulus grant reimbursements, primarily to expand the reach and capacity of our networks. As of June 30, 2017, our total debt (including capital lease obligations and before any unamortized discounts, premiums and debt issuance costs) was $5,710.3 million and was primarily incurred in connection with acquisitions.

Our business model focuses on providing on-net bandwidth infrastructure solutions to our customers, which results in what we refer to as “infrastructure economics.” Infrastructure economics are characterized by attractive revenue visibility and strong margins coupled with operating leverage for new revenue, success-based capital investments with low maintenance capital needs, and the ability to generate significant cash flow over time. For the year ended June 30, 2017, approximately 89% of our revenue was recurring in nature. Our capital expenditure investments are primarily success-based, meaning that before we commit resources to expand our network, we have a signed customer contract that will provide us with an attractive return on the required capital investment. After committing capital to connect additional customer sites, our goal is to sell additional high-bandwidth connectivity on these new routes at a relatively low incremental cost, which further enhances the return we extract from our asset base. Finally, the combination of our scale and infrastructure economics results in the ability to generate meaningful free cash flow over time.

Our management is intensely focused on creating equity value for our stockholders. Our equity value creation philosophy includes regular and rigorous financial and operational measurement, financial transparency (both internally and externally), and clear alignment of interests among employees, management, and stockholders. Our real-time measurement and reporting system serves as the foundation for our decision making and our extensive financial and operational disclosure. We also believe in fostering an entrepreneurial culture that aligns the interests of our employees, management, and stockholders.

We are a Delaware corporation formed in 2007.  As of June 30, 2017, we had 3,794 employees.

Our fiscal year ends June 30 each year and we refer to the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017 as “Fiscal 2017”, the fiscal year ended June 30, 2016 as “Fiscal 2016”, and the fiscal year ended June 30, 2015 as “Fiscal 2015”.

Bandwidth Infrastructure Industry

We are a bandwidth infrastructure provider, and our services are a critical component of the broader global communications industry. Bandwidth infrastructure, consisting primarily of fiber networks and interconnect-oriented colocation facilities, plays a fundamental role in the communications value chain, similar to other types of infrastructure such as data centers and cellular towers. Bandwidth infrastructure assets are a critical resource, connecting data centers, cellular towers, and other carrier and private networks to support the substantial growth in global data, voice and video consumption by both business and individual consumers.

Industry History

Our industry has changed substantially over the years. The first phase of the bandwidth infrastructure industry occurred with the advent of the Internet and the ensuing dot com era in the late 1990s. This led to the first major wave of fiber network deployments as a number of companies of varying backgrounds invested billions of dollars in fiber network construction throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. These fiber network developers included companies with

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national and international plans (e.g., Level 3 Communications, Qwest Communications, Williams Communications) and more regional plans (e.g., 360networks, Progress Telecom, OnFiber). Following these network builds, many of the fiber companies struggled in the early 2000s due to the lack of sufficient demand for their high-bandwidth services. Bandwidth demand during this timeframe was limited by the fact that many bandwidth-intensive applications (e.g. streaming video, cloud, mobile broadband, big data analytics, etc.) were either not yet contemplated or still very early in their life cycle. Instead, the majority of traffic at the time was low-bandwidth services such as voice and dial-up modem connections. In addition, the similarity of the fiber routes deployed resulted in significant overcapacity and associated pricing pressure, leaving a “last mile” gap and heavy competition and overcapacity along these routes. These two primary factors combined to significantly limit the fiber network providers’ operating cash flows, resulting in the majority of these companies transitioning their business models, consolidating and/or seeking bankruptcy protection.

In the following years, a substantial expansion in computing power and bandwidth-intensive applications drove meaningful bandwidth traffic growth. This growth highlighted the need to address the “last mile” gap by bringing bandwidth capacity directly to both the consumer and business end user. The capacity and performance of the consumer last mile connection was primarily addressed by the expansion of cable networks and through mobile network development by wireless carriers (supported by cellular tower operators). The growing bandwidth demand of business end users was addressed by a number of focused fiber developers constructing new networks to directly connect to data centers, cellular towers, government facilities, schools, hospitals and other locations with high-bandwidth needs. These fiber network companies were generally local or regional in nature, and were most often either survivors of the initial fiber development wave, subsidiaries of a utility parent, or owned by entrepreneurs. This period is also noted for increased financial discipline following the large speculative capital deployments of the dot com era. This is the timeframe and industry environment in which our Company was founded.

The Industry Today

The acceleration in the development of bandwidth-intensive devices and applications has resulted in a significant need to further fill in the “last mile” gap, leading to substantial capital investments in fiber networks by bandwidth infrastructure providers. Bandwidth infrastructure service providers support applications such as high definition television broadcasting and video; online streaming video; cloud applications replacing in-house enterprise software platforms; and explosive mobile data consumption (Cisco found that, in 2016, global mobile data traffic was equivalent to 18x the volume of global mobile traffic five years earlier in 2011). Companies whose services require large amounts of bandwidth and enterprises that consume large amounts of bandwidth are struggling to adapt to this rapidly evolving landscape, and the bandwidth infrastructure industry is growing in economic importance as it addresses this critical need. In addition to these demand trends, there has been significant consolidation amongst the bandwidth infrastructure services providers, validating a core tenet of the Company’s founding investment thesis. Since inception we have made 41 acquisitions in the US, Europe and Canada with an aggregate purchase consideration, net of cash acquired, totaling approximately $6.5 billion.

Industry Participants

We view the participants in today’s communications industry in two distinct categories:

·

Providers of Infrastructure.    Companies that own and operate infrastructure assets that are used to market and deliver infrastructure services. We believe these assets would be difficult to replicate given the significant capital, time, permitting, and expertise required. Providers of infrastructure typically enjoy long-term customer contracts, a highly visible and recurring revenue base, and attractive margins. We further categorize these providers of infrastructure as follows:

o

Bandwidth Infrastructure Providers:    Owners of bandwidth infrastructure assets comprised of fiber networks and interconnect-oriented colocation facilities. Bandwidth infrastructure services include dark fiber, lit services (wavelengths, Ethernet, IP, and SONET), and colocation and interconnection services for the purpose of transporting mission-critical traffic including data, voice, and video.

o

Data Center Providers:    Owners of data center facilities that include raised floor, power and cooling infrastructure. These facilities house and support networking and computing equipment for carrier networks, enterprise cloud platforms, content distribution networks, and other mission-critical applications.

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o

Cellular Tower Providers:    Owners of cellular towers, the physical infrastructure upon which antennas and associated equipment are co-located for the wireless carrier industry.

·

Users of Infrastructure.    Users of infrastructure may purchase infrastructure services either to provide value-added services to their customers or for their own private network requirements. We further categorize these users of infrastructure as follows:

o

Communications Service Providers.    Communication service providers, such as wireless service providers, ILECs, CLECs, and ISPs, are companies that use infrastructure to package, market, and sell value-added communications services such as voice, Internet, data, video, wireless, and hosting solutions.

o

End Users.    End users are public sector entities and private enterprises that purchase infrastructure services for their own internal networks. Note that end users may also address their needs by purchasing value-added services from communications service providers.

The Market Opportunity

The proliferation of smart devices and mobile broadband, real-time streaming video, social networks, online gaming, machine-to-machine connectivity, big data analytics, and cloud computing will continue to drive substantial consumer and business demand for bandwidth. Cisco estimates that mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 47% from 2016 to 2021 and that IP traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 24% from 2016 to 2021.

Communications service providers develop and deliver value-added solutions that are tailored to mass market residential and enterprise customers whose needs continue to grow and evolve as bandwidth trends expand. Given this rapid growth and the complexity and cost of building and maintaining networks, communications service providers are increasingly looking to bandwidth infrastructure providers to augment the reach and performance of their own networks and support the delivery of the services their customers demand. As this dynamic continues, bandwidth infrastructure providers will become further entrenched as mission-critical partners to the communications service providers.

Similarly, end users such as private enterprises (e.g., media/content providers, financial institutions, and hospital systems) and public sector entities (e.g., governmental agencies and school districts) have experienced significant growth and change in the role that bandwidth plays within their organizations. As these needs continue to grow in both volume and criticality, end users will increasingly choose to directly procure bandwidth infrastructure services in order to gain more security, control and scale in their internal network operations. An example of this disintermediation is the trend of large school districts, adapting to e-education requirements, directly purchasing dark fiber as a replacement to more value-added solutions. We believe that, as these dynamics play out across all industries, the number of end users directly seeking bandwidth infrastructure services will continue to expand.

By focusing on the reach, density, and performance of their physical networks, bandwidth infrastructure providers can deliver customized services to communications service providers and end users more quickly and with superior economics than these users could otherwise self-provide. Whether providing fiber connectivity to a wireless provider’s towers to enable mobile broadband, supplying a national communications service provider with a metro fiber footprint in new markets, providing a lit bandwidth connection to multiple enterprise data centers for an industrial company, providing interconnection capabilities to a hosting company within a data center, or solving for the next society-impacting innovation, bandwidth infrastructure providers will continue to invest in and expand their infrastructure assets to meet this growing demand.

Given the natural economies of scale, there has been significant consolidation among bandwidth infrastructure providers, particularly in the U.S. We believe this consolidation trend will continue in the U.S. and is beginning in Europe and Canada. Combined with the barriers to new entrants, we foresee a decreasing number of bandwidth infrastructure providers against a backdrop of continued strong demand for their services.

Our Bandwidth Infrastructure Assets

Our bandwidth infrastructure assets consist of our fiber networks, the optronic equipment used to provide our lit services over our fiber networks, and our data centers where we provide colocation and interconnection services.

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Our Fiber Networks

Our network footprint includes both large and small metro geographies, the extended suburban regions of many cities, and the large rural, national and international fiber links that connect our metro networks. We believe that our network assets would be difficult to replicate given the geographic reach, network density, and capital investment required. Our fiber networks span over 123,841 route miles and 10,438,246 fiber miles (representing an average of 84 fibers per route), serve approximately 391 geographic markets in the United States, Canada and Europe, and connect approximately 31,000 buildings, including approximately 7,500 cellular towers and 1,141 data centers. Our networks allow us to provide our high-bandwidth infrastructure services to our customers over redundant fiber facilities between critical customer locations. We believe the location and density of our expansive network footprint allow us to more competitively service our target customers’ bandwidth infrastructure needs at the local, regional, national, and international level relative to other regional bandwidth infrastructure service providers or long-haul carriers. Our fiber networks also have the following key attributes:

·

Extensive Coverage.    Our fiber networks are located across large and small metro geographies, the extended metro and suburban regions of many cities, and traverse large rural areas to connect metro markets. This network coverage allows us to address our target customers’ needs in a variety of geographies and for a variety of applications, all while remaining “on-net” and maintaining infrastructure economics.

·

Scalable Network Architecture.    Our networks are scalable, meaning we often have spare fiber, conduit access rights and/or rights of way that allow us to continue to add capacity to our network as our customers’ demand for our services increases. In addition, the majority of our core fiber network segments utilize DWDM systems, nearly all of which have spare capacity through which we can continue to add wavelengths to our network without consuming additional fiber.

·

Modern Fiber and Optronics.    Our modern fiber networks support current generation optronic equipment including DWDM systems, carrier class Ethernet switches and IP routers. This equipment is used to provide our lit services. The vast majority of our networks are capable of supporting next generation technologies with minimal capital investment.

Metro Fiber Networks.    We use our metro fiber networks to provide bandwidth infrastructure services within the metro markets that we serve. Our metro networks are most commonly used in the following two scenarios.  First, to provide service between on-net buildings that are located in the same geographic market. Second, to connect our on-net buildings within a metro market to another metro market via our regional and/or long-haul networks. We continue to expand our metro fiber networks within the metro geography and into the surrounding suburban areas as we extend to additional buildings to meet new demand on a success basis. Success-based expansion means that before we commit resources to expand our network, we have a signed customer contract that will provide us with an attractive return on required capital. In many of our metro markets, we have high count fiber cables (sometimes as many as 864 fibers per cable) and in some cases multiple spare conduits on our metro fiber routes. On individual segments where our fiber capacity becomes highly utilized, we seek to augment that capacity also on a success basis.

Regional and Long-haul Fiber Networks.    We use our regional fiber networks to provide bandwidth infrastructure services between the metro markets that we serve. Our regional and long-haul networks are most commonly used in the following three scenarios.  First, to provide service between on-net buildings that are located in different large markets (for example, Chicago and New York). Second, to connect our on-net buildings in small and mid-sized markets back to major data centers, wireless switching centers, and carrier hotels in larger markets (for example, between Lima, Ohio and Cleveland, Ohio). Third, occasionally our networks provide service between on-net buildings in two different small or mid-sized markets located on various parts of our regional networks (for example, between Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Alexandria, Minnesota). We seek to continue to add new segments and markets to our regional and long-haul networks on a success basis, supported by a customer contract. We have deployed current generation DWDM technologies across the majority of our regional and long-haul networks, allowing a current maximum scaling to four terabytes (i.e. 4,000G) of bandwidth and the ability to add capacity as demand for bandwidth increases. We expect that as technology continues to advance, we will augment and invest in our regional and long-haul networks accordingly.

Fiber-to-the-Tower Networks.    We operate fiber-to-the-tower networks across our fiber network footprint and connect to approximately 7,500 cellular towers. These FTT networks provide our customers with bandwidth infrastructure services that offer significantly improved speed, scale, performance and service levels relative to legacy

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copper and microwave networks. Our FTT networks are scalable, which means that we can quickly and easily increase the amount of bandwidth that we provide to each of the towers as our customers’ wireless data networks grow. Our FTT markets are generally in areas where we already have dense fiber networks (either metro or regional), which affords us the ability to offer ring-protected mobile infrastructure services. We are increasingly providing dark fiber services on our FTT networks.

Through these fiber networks, we provide service to approximately 31,000 on-net buildings and are continually making success-based capital investments to increase our on-net building footprint. On-net buildings are buildings that are directly connected via fiber to our long-haul, regional, metro, and FTT networks. Our customers generally purchase our bandwidth infrastructure services to transport their data, Internet, wireless and voice traffic between buildings directly connected to our network. The types of buildings connected to our network primarily consist of the following:

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Data Centers, Carrier Hotels and Central Offices.    These buildings house multiple consumers of bandwidth infrastructure services, serving as telecommunications and content exchange points. Our fiber networks generally connect the most important of these buildings in the markets where we operate. We have over 1,900 of these types of facilities connected to our network.

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Single-Tenant, High-Bandwidth Locations.    Generally these are other telecom, media or Internet content buildings that house a single large consumer of bandwidth infrastructure services. Examples of these buildings include video aggregation sites, mobile switching centers and carrier POPs. Our network is connected to these buildings only when the tenant is a customer. We currently have over 3,300 single-tenant, high-bandwidth locations on-net.

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Cellular Towers.    We connect to cellular towers and other locations that house wireless antennas. We have approximately 7,500 cellular towers on-net. Typically, towers have multiple tenants, which provides us with the opportunity to sell services to those additional tenants.

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Enterprise Buildings.    Our network extends to over 19,600 enterprise buildings. This grouping contains a mix of single-tenant and multi-tenant enterprise buildings and includes hospitals, corporate data centers, schools, government buildings, research centers and other key corporate locations that require bandwidth infrastructure services.

Our Data Centers

Many of our data center facilities are located in some of the most important carrier hotels in North America, including 60 Hudson Street and 111 8th Avenue in New York; 165 Halsey Street in Newark; 401 N. Broad Street in Philadelphia; 1 Summer Street in Boston; 1950 N. Stemmons Freeway and 2323 Bryan Street in Dallas; 2001 6th Street in Seattle; and 151 Front Street in Toronto. We have the exclusive right to operate and provide colocation and interconnection services in the Meet-Me Room at 60 Hudson Street. We also have colocation facilities located in Atlanta, Ashburn, Austin, Amsterdam, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Minneapolis, Montreal, Nashville, Paris, Phoenix, San Diego, Santa Clara, Toronto and four additional locations in Europe. All of our facilities are network-neutral, have ample power to meet customer needs, backup power in the form of batteries and generators, air conditioning, modern fire suppression equipment, 24/7 security and equipment monitoring, and redundant cooling capabilities. We have long-term leases with the owners of each of the buildings where we provide colocation services. Our colocation facilities total approximately 870,000 square feet of billable colocation space.

Underlying Rights

We have the necessary right-of-way agreements and other required rights, including state and federal government authorization, to allow us to maintain and expand our fiber networks that are located on private property and public rights-of-way, including utility poles. When we expand our network, we obtain the necessary construction permits, license agreements, permits and franchise agreements. Certain of these permits, licenses and franchises are for a limited duration. When we need to use private property, our strategy is to obtain rights-of-way under long-term contracts.

Our Segments and Services

We provide high-bandwidth infrastructure services over our extensive metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks and through our interconnect-oriented datacenter facilities.  We provide our products and services through our six operating segments: Fiber Solutions, Transport, Enterprise Networks, Zayo Colocation (zColo), Allstream and Other.   

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Across our segments, we operate individual Strategic Product Groups (“SPGs”). Each SPG has financial accountability and decision-making authority, which promotes agility in the fast-moving markets we serve. Financial information for each of our operating segments and our domestic and foreign operations is contained in Note 15 – Segment Reporting to our consolidated financial statements.

Fiber SolutionsThrough the Fiber Solutions segment, we provide raw bandwidth infrastructure to customers that require more control of their internal networks. These services include dark fiber, dedicated lit networks and mobile infrastructure (fiber-to-the-tower and small cell). Dark fiber is a physically separate and secure, private platform for dedicated bandwidth. The Company leases dark fiber pairs (usually 2 to 12 total fibers) to our customers, who “light” the fiber using their own optronics. Our mobile infrastructure services provide direct fiber connections to cell towers, small cells, hub sites, and mobile switching centers. Fiber Solutions customers include carriers and other communication service providers, Internet service providers, wireless service providers, major media and content companies, large enterprises, and other companies that have the expertise to run their own fiber optic networks or require interconnected technical space. The contract terms in the Fiber Solutions segment tend to range from three to twenty years. 

Transport.  The Transport segment provides lit bandwidth infrastructure solutions over our metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks. The segment uses optronics to light the fiber, and our customers pay for service based on the amount and type of bandwidth they purchase. Our services within this segment include wavelengths, wholesale IP services and SONET. We target customers who require a minimum of 10G of bandwidth across their networks. Transport customers include carriers, content providers, financial services companies, healthcare, government entities, education institutions and other medium and large enterprises. The contract terms in this segment tend to range from two to five years.  SPGs within the Transport segment include:

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Zayo Wavelength Services (“Waves”).  Through our Waves SPG, we provide lit bandwidth infrastructure services to customers by using optical wavelength technology. The service is provided by using DWDM optronic equipment to “multiplex” multiple channels (i.e., wavelengths) of dedicated capacity on a single fiber pair. The wavelength group provides its services in speeds of 1G, 2.5G, 10G, 40G, and 100G. Customers include carriers, financial services companies, healthcare, government institutions, education institutions and other enterprises. Services are typically provided for terms between one and five years for a fixed recurring monthly fee and in some cases an additional upfront, non-recurring fee.  

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Internet Protocol (“IP”) Transit.  The IP Transit SPG provides lit bandwidth infrastructure services to its customers utilizing Internet Protocol technology. IP technology transports data across multiple circuits over a shared infrastructure from the customer source to the customer required destination. Information leaving the source is divided into multiple packets and each packet traverses the network utilizing the most efficient path and means available, as determined by a network of IP routers. Packets of information may travel across different physical circuits or paths in order to reach the destination, at which point the packets are reassembled to form the complete communication. Services are generally used to exchange or access traffic on the public Internet. Services are provided in speeds ranging from 10Mb to 100G on a single customer port interface. Customers include regional telecommunications and cable carriers, ISPs, enterprises, educational institutions and content companies. Services are typically provided for terms between one and three years for a fixed recurring monthly fee and in some cases a usage-based and/or an additional upfront, non-recurring fee. Pricing is generally a function of bandwidth capacity and transport required to carry traffic from the customer location to a public Internet exchange.

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Zayo SONET Services.  Our SONET Services SPG provides lit bandwidth infrastructure services to its customers utilizing SONET technology. SONET is a standardized protocol that transfers multiple digital bit streams over optical fiber using lasers. SONET technology is often used to support private line services. This protocol enables transmission of voice, data and video at high speeds. SONET networks are protected, which provides for virtually instantaneous restoration of service in the event of a fiber cut or equipment failure. Services are provided in speeds ranging from DS-1 (1.54Mb) to OC-192 (10G) of capacity. Customers in this group are largely carriers. Services are typically provided for terms between one and five years for a fixed recurring monthly fee and in some cases an additional upfront, non-recurring fee. SONET is generally a legacy product that is gradually being replaced by Ethernet, wavelength and dark fiber services. As a result, the SONET SPG generally manages its business to maximize cash generation and deploys minimal growth capital.

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Enterprise NetworksThe Enterprise Networks segment provides communication solutions to medium and large enterprises. Our services within this segment include Ethernet, enterprise private and connectivity services, managed services and cloud based compute and storage products. Solutions range from point-to-point data connections to multi-site managed networks to international outsourced IT infrastructure environments.  SPGs within the Enterprise Networks segment include:

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Zayo Ethernet Services.    Our Ethernet Services SPG provides lit bandwidth infrastructure services to its customers utilizing Ethernet technology. Ethernet services are offered in metro markets as well as between metro areas (intercity) in point-to-point and multi-point configurations. Unlike data transmission over a dedicated wavelength network, information transmitted over Ethernet is transferred in a packet or frame across the network. The frame enables the data to navigate across a shared infrastructure in order to reach the customer required destination. Services are provided in speeds ranging from 10Mb to 10G. Customers include carriers, financial services companies, healthcare, government institutions, education institutions and other enterprises. Services are typically provided for terms between one and five years for a fixed recurring monthly fee and in some cases an additional upfront, non-recurring fee.

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Enterprise Private and Connectivity (“EPIC”)Our EPIC SPG provides lit bandwidth infrastructure services to its customers utilizing Internet Protocol and managed Wide Area Network (“WAN”) technology. Services are generally used to exchange or access traffic on the public Internet and include Dedicated Internet Access (“DIA”), IP Virtual Private Networks (“VPN”) and Distributed Denial of Service (“DDos”) mitigation services. Services are typically provided for terms between one and ten years for a fixed recurring monthly fee and in some cases an additional upfront, non-recurring fee. Pricing is generally a function of bandwidth capacity and transport required to carry traffic from customer location to an Internet gateway.   

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Managed Security Services (“MSS”).   Our MSS SPG provides technical resources to prevent, detect and respond to malicious threats, specializing in content and web filtering, authentication and identity management, cloud security and encryption.

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Zayo Cloud Services (“Cloud”).  The Zayo Cloud Services SPG combines private cloud, public cloud and managed services in order to provide its customers infrastructure as a service (IaaS) which enables on-demand scaling and virtual computing in hybrid environments.

Zayo Colocation (“zColo").    The Colocation segment provides data center infrastructure solutions to a broad range of enterprise, carrier, cloud, and content customers. Our services within this segment include the provision of colocation space, power and interconnection services in North America and Western Europe. Solutions range in size from single cabinet solutions to 1MW+ data center infrastructure environments. Our data centers also support a large component of our networking equipment for the purpose of aggregating and distributing data, voice, Internet, and video traffic. The contract terms in this segment tend to range from two to five years.

AllstreamThe Allstream segment provides Voice, SIP Trunking, Unified Communications and scalable data services using a variety of technologies for businesses. Allstream also provides services to approximately 70,000 customers in the small and medium business market while leveraging its extensive network and product offerings.  These include IP, internet, voice, IP Trunking, cloud private branch exchange, collaboration services and Unified Communications. SPG’s within the Allstream segment include:

·

Voice.  The Voice SPG provides a full range of local voice services allowing business customers to complete telephone calls in their local exchange, as well as make long distance, toll-free and related calls. Unified Communications is the integration of real-time communication services such as telephony (including Cloud-based IP telephony), instant messaging and video conferencing with non-real-time communication services, such as integrated voicemail and e-mail.  Unified Communications provides a set of products that give users the ability to work and communicate across multiple devices, media types and geographies.

·

Small and Medium Business (“SMB”)The SMB SPG offers a range of data services that help small and medium business customers implement the right data and networking solutions for their business. Those scalable data services make use of technologies including Ethernet services, IP/MPLS VPN Solutions, and wavelength services. 

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Other.  The Other segment is primarily comprised of Zayo Professional Services (“ZPS”). ZPS provides network and technical resources to customers who wish to leverage our expertise in designing, acquiring and maintaining networks. Services are typically provided for a term of one year for a fixed recurring monthly fee in the case of network and on an hourly basis for technical resources (usage revenue). ZPS also generates revenue via telecommunication equipment sales.

During Fiscal 2017, we changed our reportable segments. With the continued increase in our scope and scale, effective January 1, 2017, our chief operating decision maker ("CODM"), who is our Chief Executive Officer, implemented certain organizational changes to the management and operation of the business that directly impact how the CODM makes resource allocation decisions and manages the Company. The change in structure had the impact of revising our reportable segments and re-aligning our existing SPGs within these segments.  The change in structure also had the impact of consolidating and/or regrouping existing SPGs and product offerings among our reportable segments and disaggregating the legacy Zayo Canada segment among the existing SPGs and a new Allstream reportable segment.  The change in structure also resulted in adjustments to intercompany pricing which more closely align to third party pricing on the services which are provided between our SPGs.  

Our legacy SPGs included Dark Fiber and Mobile Infrastructure Group (“MIG”).  Effective January 1, 2017, the Dark Fiber and MIG SPGs were merged together and are now reported as part of the Fiber Solutions reporting segment.  Waves and Ethernet services that are provided on dedicated dark fiber strands and colocation facilities that support only dark fiber customers which were historically reported as part of the Waves, Ethernet or zColo SPGs were transferred to the Fiber Solutions reportable segment effective January 1, 2017 (the “Dedicated Services Transfers”).

Our legacy Waves, IP and Sonet SPGs, after giving effect to the Dedicated Services Transfers, are now reported under the Company’s Transport reportable segment.

Our legacy Ethernet and Cloud SPGs, after giving effect to the Dedicated Services Transfers, are now reported under the Company’s Enterprise Networks segment.

Our legacy Zayo Canada reporting segment was disaggregated based upon the products offered by the legacy Zayo Canada segment to our existing SPGs and two new SPGs were established: Voice and SMB.

All prior period segment level financial and operating metrics included in this Annual Report have been recast to conform to the current period presentation for comparability.

Our Operations

Network Management and Operations

Our primary network operating center (“NOC”) is located in Tulsa, Oklahoma and provides 24 hours per day, 365 days per year monitoring and network surveillance. As part of our business continuity plan, our primary NOC is backed up by several regional operations centers located in Washington, D.C.; Allentown, Pennsylvania; and Butte, Montana. We continually monitor for, and proactively respond to, any events that negatively impact or interrupt the services that we provide to our customers. Our NOC also responds to customer network inquiries via standard customer trouble ticket procedures. Our NOC coordinates and notifies our customers of maintenance activities and is the organization responsible for ensuring that we meet our service level agreements.

Information Technology

Our Information Technology systems have been designed and built specifically for the needs of a focused bandwidth infrastructure provider primarily leveraging the salesforce.com platform. This platform was adopted at our inception and has been enhanced over time to integrate all of our acquired companies and increase functionality in every area.

Our current systems’ capability is mature, and we view our application functionality as a competitive advantage in our industry. Our system is differentiated from the typical telecom industry technology solution consisting of separate and loosely integrated sales force automation, customer relationship management, provisioning, mapping, inventory, financial, provisioning and other systems with multiple, sometimes conflicting databases.

We have also developed within our salesforce.com platform a proprietary capability we call Tranzact. Tranzact is a set of tools and processes designed to enhance the speed and simplicity of procuring bandwidth infrastructure services. We believe Tranzact will further increase our competitive advantage in delivering bandwidth infrastructure solutions.

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We have a fully implemented business continuity and disaster recovery plan that provides near real-time data access from physically diverse data centers (Dallas and Washington, D.C.). We further protect our data with off-site data storage practices.

Our Sales and Marketing Organization

Our business primarily engages in direct sales through our sales organization, consisting of 250 sales representatives as of June 30, 2017. Each of these sales representatives is part of an enterprise or carrier focused sales team led by a sales director whose team is responsible for meeting a set of quarterly bookings targets. The sales organization sells services across all our SPGs. The sales representatives are directly supported by sales management, engineering, solutions engineering and marketing staff.

The sales organization is organized into direct sales channels that generally align around both region and customer. Each of these channels maintains dedicated sales and solutions engineering support resources. There are three direct sales channels in North America and one in Europe, each of which are geographically focused supporting key customers, particularly in the financial, webscale, media and gaming, data center, and government verticals.    In addition to those regional channels, there are dedicated teams focused on our wireline and wireless customers and ecosystem across all geographies.   

In addition to the direct channels discussed above, an indirect sales channel manages our channel partner program with various high value telecom sales agents. 

Our direct sales force is compensated through a unique system relative to typical industry practices. Sales staff are compensated through salary and incentive compensation, which is comprised of cash and equity.  Incentive compensation is achieved based upon the net present value (“NPV”) of the contracted services sold, the incremental revenue related to contracted services sold and the effective management of churn related to the accounts they manage. We believe that this compensation system best aligns the interests of our salespeople, management and our stockholders. It also is an example of the financial philosophy and culture that we have developed since our inception

Separate from the sales groups, we have a corporate marketing group that is responsible for our web presence, customer facing mapping tools, marketing campaigns, and public relations. The sales organization is further supported by product management teams that are organized into the SPGs.

Our Customers

Our customers generally have a significant and growing need for the bandwidth infrastructure services that we provide. Our customer base consists of wireless service providers, carriers and other communication service providers, media and content companies (including cable and satellite video providers), and other bandwidth-intensive businesses in the education, healthcare, financial services, governmental and technology entities. Our largest single customer, based on recurring revenue, accounted for approximately 8% of our revenue during the year ended June 30, 2017, and total revenues from our top ten customers accounted for approximately 27% of our revenue during the same period. These customers are multinational organizations with substantial liquidity and access to capital, and whose bandwidth needs are mission-critical to their own businesses and strategies. While these large customers generally have a finite set of master contracts with us, they procure a large volume of individual services with us, each of which has its own service detail and term.

The majority of our customers sign Master Service Agreements (“MSAs”) that contain standard terms and conditions including service level agreements, required response intervals, indemnification, default, force majeure, assignment and notification, limitation of liability, confidentiality and other key terms and conditions. Most MSAs also contain appendices that contain information that is specific to each of the services that we provide. The MSAs either have exhibits that contain service orders or, alternatively, terms for services ordered are set forth in a separate service order. Each service order sets forth the minimum contract duration, the monthly recurring charge, and the non-recurring charges.

Our Business Strategy

In pursuit of our mission, our Business Strategy includes the following key elements:

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Focus on Bandwidth Infrastructure.    We expect that bandwidth needs for mobile applications, cloud-based computing, and machine-to-machine connectivity will continue to grow with the continued adoption of bandwidth-intensive devices, as well as the escalating demand for Internet-delivered video. We focus on providing high-bandwidth infrastructure solutions, which we believe are essential in the

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consumption and delivery of bandwidth-intensive applications and services by enterprise customers and communications service providers. We believe our disciplined approach to providing these critical services to our targeted customers enables us to offer a high level of customer service, while at the same time being responsive to changes in the marketplace.

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Target Large Consumers of Bandwidth.    Our asset base and product suite are geared for large consumers of bandwidth with high connectivity requirements. The majority of our customers require more than 10G of bandwidth; many of our customers require multiple terabytes of bandwidth. Our revenue base is generally characterized by customers with a high bandwidth spend, consisting of a large number of individual services and increasing bandwidth infrastructure service demand. Tailoring our operations around these products, services and customers allows us to operate efficiently and meet these large consumers’ requirements for mission-critical infrastructure.

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Leverage Our Extensive Asset Base by Selling Services on Our Network.    Targeting our sales efforts to services that utilize our existing fiber networks and data centers enables us to limit our reliance on third-party service providers. We believe this in turn produces high incremental margins, which helps us expand consolidated margins, achieve attractive returns on the capital we invest, and realize significant levered free cash flow. We also believe this enables us to provide our customers with a superior level of customer service due to the relative ease in responding to customer service inquiries over one contiguous fiber network. Our existing networks enable us to sell additional bandwidth to our existing customers as their capacity needs grow.

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Continue to Expand Our Infrastructure Assets.    Our ability to rapidly add network capacity to meet the growing requirements of our customers is an important component of our value proposition. We will continue to seek opportunities to expand our network footprint where supporting customer contracts provide an attractive return on our investment. The expansion of our network footprint also provides the ancillary benefit of bringing other potential customer locations within reach. We design our networks with additional capacity so that increasing bandwidth capacity can be deployed economically and efficiently. Capital expenditures are primarily success-based.

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Leverage Our Existing Relationships and Assets to Innovate.    We believe we possess a unique set of assets and management systems designed to deliver customer solutions tailored to specific trends we observe in the marketplace. Our high-energy, entrepreneurial culture fosters employee innovation on an ongoing basis in response to specific customer requirements. Furthermore, we plan to continue to commit capital to new lines of infrastructure businesses that leverage our existing assets. For example, we are expanding into small cell infrastructure services provided to wireless services providers. These services entail us providing dark fiber and related services from a small cell location back to a mobile switching center. We provide the fiber-based transport over our existing and/or newly constructed fiber networks. In addition, we provide network-neutral space and power for wireless service providers to co-locate their small cell antennas and ancillary equipment.

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Intelligently Expand Through Acquisitions.    We have made 41 acquisitions to date for an aggregate purchase price, net of cash, of $6.5 billion. We believe we have consistently demonstrated an ability to acquire and effectively integrate companies, realize cost synergies, and organically grow revenue post-acquisition. Acquisitions have the ability to increase the scale of our operations, which in turn affords us the ability to expand our operating leverage, extend our network reach, and broaden our customer base.  We believe our ability to realize significant cost synergies through acquisitions provides us with a competitive advantage in future consolidation opportunities within our industry. We will continue to evaluate potential acquisition opportunities and are regularly involved in acquisition discussions. We will evaluate these opportunities based on a number of criteria, including expected return on capital, the quality of the infrastructure assets, the fit within our existing businesses, the opportunity to expand our network, and the opportunity to create value through the realization of cost synergies.

Our Competitive Strengths

We believe the following are among our core competitive strengths and enable us to differentiate ourselves in the markets we serve:

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Unique Bandwidth Infrastructure Assets.    We believe replicating our extensive metro, regional, and long-haul fiber assets would be difficult given the significant capital, time, permitting, and expertise

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required. Our fiber spans over 123,841 route miles and 10,438,246 fiber miles (representing an average of 84 fibers per route), served 391 geographic markets in the United States, Canada and Europe, and connect to approximately 31,000 buildings. The majority of the markets that we serve and buildings to which we connect have few other networks capable of providing similar high-bandwidth infrastructure and connectivity solutions, which we believe provides us with a sustainable competitive advantage in these markets, and positions us as a mission-critical infrastructure supplier to the largest users of bandwidth. We believe that the vast majority of customers using our network, including our lit bandwidth, fiber-to-the-tower, and dark fiber customers, choose our services due to the quality and reach of our network, and the ability our network gives us to innovate and scale with their growing bandwidth needs. Additionally, we operate 49 data center facilities, which are located in eleven of the most important carrier hotels in the U.S., Canada and France. This collective presence, combined with our high network density, creates a network effect that helps us retain existing customers and attract new customers. From July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2017, exclusive of acquisitions, we have invested approximately $2.1 billion of capital in our networks, including expansion and maintenance expenditures.

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Strong Revenue Growth, Visibility, and Durability.    We have consistently grown our organic revenue, as gross installed revenue has exceeded churn processed in every quarter since we began reporting in March 2010. We believe our exposure to the enduring trend of increasing bandwidth consumption, combined with our focused execution, have allowed us to achieve this consistent growth. We typically provide our bandwidth infrastructure services for a fixed monthly recurring fee under multi-year contracts. Our contract terms range from one year to twenty years. Our customers use our bandwidth infrastructure to support their mission-critical networks and applications. The switching costs and effort required to replace our services can be high, particularly for the services within our Fiber Solutions and Transport segments, given the criticality of our services and the potential cost and disruption. We believe that increasing bandwidth needs combined with the mission-critical nature of our services provided under multi-year contracts create strong revenue growth, visibility, and durability, which support our decision-making abilities and financial stability. We believe that our industry’s high barriers to entry, our economies of scale and scope and customer switching costs contribute to our strong financial performance.

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Customer Service and Ability to Innovate for Our Customers.    Our sales and product professionals work closely with potential and existing customers to design tailored high-bandwidth connectivity solutions across our SPGs to meet specific, varying, and evolving customer needs. We are focused on delivering high-quality, reliable service to our customers. We achieve this by leveraging our contiguous network to expand with our customers as they seek to build scale, coverage, and/or performance. Additionally, our focus on serving the largest and most sophisticated users of bandwidth keeps our sales, engineering, and service organizations attuned to the latest technologies, architectures, and solutions that our customers may seek to implement. We believe our willingness to innovate for our customers and our dedication to customer service help establish our position as an important infrastructure supplier and allow us to attract new customers and businesses, sell an increasing amount of services to our existing customers, and reduce customer turnover.

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Strategic, Operational and Financial Transparency Excellence.    As part of our strategy to serve the largest users of bandwidth, we have completed and integrated 41 acquisitions to date. Our acquired assets have been combined to create a contiguous network with the ability to provision and maintain local, regional, national, or international high-bandwidth connections across our SPGs. Our entire network, sales and churn activity, installation pipeline, NPV commission plans, and all customer contracts are managed through an integrated operating and reporting platform, which gives management strong visibility into the business and improves our ability to drive return-maximizing decisions throughout the organization. Our focus on operational and financial transparency not only allows us to be very nimble in attacking various market opportunities, but also provides us the ability to deliver disclosure that our stockholders and other stakeholders can use to accurately judge management’s performance from a capital allocation, financial, and operational perspective.

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Financially Focused and Entrepreneurial Culture.    Virtually all operational and financial decisions we make are driven by the standard of maximizing the value of our enterprise. Our sales commission plans use an NPV-based approach with the goal of encouraging the proper behavior within our sales force, and our SPGs are held to group level equity internal rate of return (“IRR”) targets set by management. To

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align individual behaviors with stockholder objectives, equity compensation is used throughout the Company, and our compensation plans include a larger equity component than we believe is standard in our industry.  In addition to striving for industry-leading operational and growth outcomes to drive value creation, we are prepared to use debt capacity to enhance stockholder returns, but not at the expense of other stakeholders and only at levels we believe are in the long-term interests of the Company, our customers, and our stockholders. Finally, our owners’ manual, mission, and investor transparency all serve to enhance cultural alignment across the Company and our stockholders.

·

Experienced Management with Unique Leadership Approach.    We have assembled an experienced management team that we believe is well-qualified to lead our Company and execute our strategy. Our management team has substantial industry experience in managing and designing fiber networks and network-neutral colocation and interconnection facilities and in selling and marketing bandwidth infrastructure services. In addition, our management team has significant experience in acquiring and integrating bandwidth infrastructure and assets. Our management team is a cohesive unit with a common history that in many cases precedes the Company’s founding. We also believe that our approach to leadership - operationally, financially, culturally - is unique in our industry and differentiates us from our competitors.

Our Competition

Fiber Solutions

Given the requirement to own the underlying bandwidth infrastructure assets (e.g., fiber networks) in order to provide dark fiber solutions services, the competitive environment tends to be less intensive for these products and the barriers to entry high. The degree of competition and parties in competition vary by physical infrastructure sub-service and by individual market and fiber route.

Competition in dark fiber services tends to be less intense than for lit bandwidth infrastructure services primarily because a provider must predominantly own and operate a high count fiber network covering a substantial portion of the geographical demand in order to compete for a customer’s business. The uniqueness, density and depth (i.e., high fiber count) of our metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks is therefore a key differentiating factor. In addition, given that providing dark fiber services often includes some degree of network expansion, dark fiber providers must also have internal project management expertise and access to capital to execute on the expansion aspect of the business. Due to the custom nature of most dark fiber opportunities, many larger lit bandwidth infrastructure providers do not actively market dark fiber as a product, even if they own fiber networks in the desired geographies. As a result, competition is often more limited in the dark fiber services market and highly dependent on the local (even sub-market) supply and demand environment. Given this dynamic and the generally longer contractual term of dark fiber services, dark fiber pricing tends to be more inflationary in nature.

Specific dark fiber competitors vary significantly based on geography, and often a particular solution can be provided by only one to three carriers that have sufficient fiber in place in the desired area or route. Historically, these competitors have fallen into two categories: first, privately owned regional bandwidth infrastructure providers with a similar degree of focus (e.g., Lightower) and second, single market dark fiber providers with market and fiber construction expertise (e.g., DQE Communications and Edison Carrier Solutions). More recently other multi-geography competitors have emerged due to acquisitions in the industry (e.g.,Crown Castle and Uniti).

Competition in mobile infrastructure services tends to mirror dark fiber services because of the need to own and operate an expansive and deep metro fiber network in order to compete. Given the frequent need to expand upon an existing fiber footprint in order to access additional cell towers and small cell locations, project management expertise and access to capital is also a key competitive factor. One additional criterion is that wireless carriers prefer to work with a more finite group of mobile infrastructure providers on either a metro or regional geographic basis. As a result, the competitive group tends to match that of dark fiber services, with the addition of two competitive groups. First, local cable providers and ILECs who will sometimes break from their retail and small enterprise core focus to compete for FTT business, often as a result of legacy copper or coaxial-based services provided to these towers. Second, microwave backhaul providers who focus on more remote or rural towers that have lesser bandwidth needs that they can serve with less capital-intensive (and less bandwidth-capable) microwave solutions at a lower total cost. Examples of these additional mobile infrastructure competitors are Comcast, CenturyLink, Crown Castle, Conterra and Mobilitie.

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Transport

We believe that some of the key factors that influence our customers’ selection of us as their transport provider are our ability to provide an on-net service that utilizes our fiber network on an end-to-end basis, the availability of high capacity services up to 100G or higher as optical technology advances, the uniqueness, quantity and latency of available intercity and metro routes, the peering capacity and reach of our IP network, the price of the service provided, and the ongoing level of network availability provided.

Generally, price competition varies depending on the location of the service endpoints and carrier uniqueness of network assets. We face direct price competition when there are other fiber-based carriers who have intercity networks that leverage similar fiber routes with similar end to end route latency. Often a particular solution can be provided by only one to three carriers that have comparable network reach in place. Typically, these competitors are publicly traded communications service providers that provide bandwidth infrastructure, such as Level 3 Communications, Inc., TeliaSonera, or Cogent Communications, or in certain geographies are privately-held companies such as Windstream or EU Networks.  We may also compete with large, well-capitalized ILECs, such as AT&T Inc. and CenturyLink, Inc., who have a well established and global IP offering. We believe that price competition will continue where our competitors have comparable existing fiber and optical networks. Some of our competitors have long-standing customer relationships, very large enterprise values, and significant access to capital.

Enterprise Networks

Enterprise Networks is focused on offering network connectivity, cloud and cyber security solutions to large multi-site enterprises. The competition is intense and varied for the enterprise IT business and the specific competitors based on each of the service categories and geographies. Our key challenges range from aggressive pricing to an evolving competitive field with the completion of each new merger or acquisition.


From a network connectivity perspective, our competitors range from well-capitalized ILECs such as AT&T Inc., CenturyLink, Inc./Level3, and Verizon Communications Inc/XO, or publicly traded communications service providers that provide bandwidth infrastructure, such as Cogent and Windstream. In some geographies, we also compete with Lightower, GTT and Comcast. For cloud services our competition also varies depending on the type of service. For example, we compete with Dell EMC, HPE and NetApp in the Private Cloud market but we compete with AWS and Rackspace and smaller cloud service providers for Object-Based Storage business. In the area of cybersecurity, the competitive field is vast and specialized and will vary depending on the specific security need ranging from infrastructure security, endpoint security, application security, managed security to threat analysis and protection, Internet of Things and data security to name a few.

 

Many of our competitors in the enterprise market are well established with long-standing relationships and we must compete in a variety of aspects as enterprise IT buyers are tech savvy and well informed. As an example, purchasers of network services generally base their decisions on the best value, which includes price, route (diversity and latency), flexibility, and customer service perspective. Two of our key competitive challenges are brand recognition and product set awareness. However, we believe we are very competitive when we can communicate our capabilities that include our dense, global fiber network, our ability to implement complex custom solutions and our responsive customer service at a price that meets the customer’s budget. With Enterprise Networks, we believe we can aggressively compete with the short list of single source global providers.

 

zColo

The market for our colocation and interconnection services is very competitive. We compete based on location, quality of service, network-neutrality, breadth of network connectivity options, type and quantity of customers in our data centers, and location. We compete against both large, public colocation providers who have significant enterprise values, and privately-held, well-funded colocation providers. Some of our competitors have longer-standing customer relationships and significantly greater access to capital, which may enable them to materially increase data center space, and therefore lower overall market pricing for such services. Several of our competitors have much larger colocation facilities in the markets where we operate. Others operate globally and are able to attract a customer base that values and requires global reach and scale.

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These focused interconnection and colocation service providers include:  Equinix, ‎Coresite,  Cologix,  Peak 10,  Digital Realty Trust Inc,  and QTS Realty Trust Inc.  These companies offer similar services and operate in similar markets to us.

Allstream

Allstream serves business customers throughout the United States and Canada.  Its communications technologies and services include a range of scalable IP, cloud, voice and data solutions that help organizations communicate and collaborate more efficiently and profitably. Our largest competitors in Canada are the incumbent telecommunications companies Bell, TELUS and Rogers.  Our largest U.S. competitors are Masergy, Comcast, WAVE, CenturyLink and Verizon.  We also compete with other telecommunications companies, such as established cable and hydro companies, and smaller companies or re-sellers that have a more limited network.

 

Other

We do not own any significant intellectual property, nor do we spend a material amount on research and development. Our working capital requirements and expansion needs have been satisfied to date through equity contributions, debt issuances, proceeds from our initial public offering (“IPO”) and follow-on equity offering, and cash provided by operating activities.

Regulatory Matters

Our operations require that certain of our subsidiaries hold licenses, certificates, and/or other regulatory authorizations from the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), state Public Utilities Commissions (“PUCs”), European and Canadian telecommunications regulators (such as, Ofcom and ARCEP in Europe and CRTC in Canada) and other foreign regulators, all of which we have obtained and maintain in the normal course of our business. The FCC, State PUCs and foreign regulators generally have the power to modify or terminate a carrier’s authority to provide regulated wireline services for failure to comply with certain federal, state and foreign laws and regulations, and may impose fines or other penalties for violations of the same. The State PUCs typically have similar powers with respect to the intrastate services that we provide under their jurisdiction. In addition, we are required to submit periodic reports to the FCC, State PUCs, and foreign regulators documenting interstate, intrastate and foreign revenue, among other data, for fee assessments and general regulatory governance, and in some states are required to file tariffs of our rates, terms, and conditions of service. In order to engage in certain transactions in these jurisdictions, including changes of control, the encumbrance of certain assets, the issuance of securities, the incurrence of indebtedness, the guarantee of indebtedness of other entities, including subsidiaries of ours, and the transfer of our assets, we are required to provide notice and/or obtain prior approval from certain of these governmental agencies. The construction of additions to our current fiber network is also subject to certain governmental permitting and licensing requirements.

In addition, our business is subject to various other regulations at the federal, state, local and international levels. These regulations affect the way we can conduct our business and our costs of doing so. However, we believe, based on our examination of such existing and potential new regulations being considered in ongoing FCC and State PUC and European, Canadian and other foreign telecommunications proceedings, that such regulations will not have a significant impact on us.

Website Access and Important Investor Information

We file periodic reports, proxy statements, and other information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). The public may read or copy any materials we file with, or furnish to, the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC maintains an Internet site (http://www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.

Our website address is www.zayo.com, and we routinely post important investor information in the “Investors” section of our website at http://investors.zayo.com/. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, our website is not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Annual Report”). You may obtain free electronic copies of our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and all amendments to

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those reports in the “Investors” section of our website under the heading “SEC Filings”. These reports are made available on our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file them with the SEC.

We have adopted a written code of ethics applicable to our directors, officers and employees, including our principal executive officer and principal financial and accounting officers (or persons performing similar functions), in accordance with Section 406 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the rules of the SEC. In the event that we make any changes to, or provide any waivers from, the provisions of our code of ethics applicable to our executive officers and directors, we intend to disclose these events on our website or in a report on Form 8-K within four business days of such event. This code of ethics is available in the “Corporate Governance” section of our website at http://investors.zayo.com/corporate-governance.

Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Information contained in this Annual Report that is not historical by nature constitutes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  These forward-looking statements typically include words such as “believes,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “estimates,” “projects,” “could,” “may,” “will,” “should,” or “anticipates” or the negatives thereof, other variations thereon or comparable terminology, or discuss strategy. No assurance can be given that future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements will be achieved, and actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to the Company’s financial and operating prospects, current economic trends, future opportunities, ability to retain existing customers and attract new ones, the Company’s acquisition strategy and ability to integrate acquired companies and assets and achieve our planned synergies, outlook of customers, reception of new products and technologies, and strength of competition and pricing. Other factors and risks that may affect our business and future financial results are detailed in our SEC filings, including but not limited to those described under “Item 1A. Risk Factors” and “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” contained within this Annual Report. We caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their respective dates. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Annual Report or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as may be required by law.

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

You should carefully consider the risks described below as well as the other information contained in this Annual Report. If any of the following risks or uncertainties actually occurs, our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flow and prospects could be materially and adversely affected.

Risks Related to our Business

We have historically generated net losses since our inception and could incur losses in the future.

We have historically generated net losses since our inception and could incur losses in the future. These net losses primarily have been driven by significant depreciation, amortization, interest expense, and stock-based compensation. During Fiscal 2017, we had depreciation and amortization expense of $606.9 million, stock-based compensation expense of $114.1 million, and interest expense of $241.5 million. At June 30, 2017, we had $5,710.3 million of total debt (including capital lease obligations and before any unamortized discounts, premiums and debt issuance costs). We cannot assure you that we will generate net income in the future.

Since our inception, we have used more cash than we have generated from operations, and we may continue to do so.

Since our inception, we have consistently consumed our entire positive cash flow generated from operating activities with our investing activities. Our investing activities have consisted principally of the acquisition of businesses as well as material additions to property and equipment. We have funded the excess of cash used in investing activities over cash provided by operating activities with proceeds from equity contributions and equity and debt issuances.

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We intend to continue to invest in expanding our fiber network and our business and pursuing acquisitions that we believe provide an attractive return on our capital. These investments may continue to exceed the amount of cash flow available from operations after debt service requirements. To the extent that our investments exceed our cash flow from operations, we plan to rely on potential future debt or equity issuances, which could increase interest expense or dilute the interest of our stockholders, as well as cash on hand and borrowings under our revolving credit facility. We cannot assure you, however, that we will be able to obtain or continue to have access to sufficient capital on reasonable terms, or at all, to successfully grow our business.

Our revenue is relatively concentrated among a small number of customers, and the loss of any of these customers could significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.

Our largest single customer, based on recurring revenue, accounted for approximately 8% of our revenue during Fiscal 2017, and total revenues from our top ten customers accounted for approximately 27% of our revenue during Fiscal 2017. We currently depend, and expect to continue to depend, upon a relatively small number of customers for a significant percentage of our revenue. Many of these customers are also competitors for some or all of our service offerings. Our customer contracts typically have terms of one to twenty years. Our customers may elect not to renew these contracts. Furthermore, our customer contracts are terminable for cause if we breach a material provision of such contracts. We may face increased competition and pricing pressure as our customer contracts become subject to renewal. Our customers may negotiate renewal of their contracts at lower rates, for fewer services or for shorter terms. Many of our customers are in the telecommunications industry, which is undergoing consolidation. To the extent that two or more of our customers combine, they may be able to use their greater size to negotiate lower prices from us and may purchase fewer services from us, especially if their networks overlap. If we are unable to successfully renew our customer contracts on commercially acceptable terms, or if our customer contracts are terminated, our business could suffer.

We are also subject to credit risk associated with the concentration of our accounts receivable from our key customers. If one or more of these customers were to become bankrupt, insolvent or otherwise were unable to pay for the services provided by us, we may incur significant write-offs of accounts receivable or incur impairment charges.

We have numerous customer orders for connections, including contracts with multiple national wireless carriers to build out additional towers. If we are unable to satisfy new orders or build our network according to contractually specified deadlines, we may incur penalties or suffer the loss of revenue.

Our customers periodically review their telecommunication infrastructure requirements, and may adjust their plans for the purchase of additional services from us to fit changed market circumstances or strategic priorities. Any such adjustments may affect our sales of new contracts, or the renewal of existing ones, which could impact our revenue growth.

 

Future acquisitions are a component of our strategic plan, and will include integration and other risks that could harm our business.

We have grown rapidly and intend to continue to acquire complementary businesses and assets, and some of these acquisitions may be large or in new geographic areas where we do not currently operate. This exposes us to the risk that when we evaluate a potential acquisition target we over-estimate the target’s value and, as a result, pay too much for it. We also cannot be certain that we will be able to successfully integrate acquired assets or the operations of the acquired entity with our existing operations. Businesses and assets that we have acquired or may acquire in the future may be subject to unknown or contingent liabilities for which we may have limited or no recourse against the sellers. While we usually require the sellers to indemnify us with respect to breaches of representations and warranties that survive, such indemnification is often limited and subject to various materiality thresholds, a significant deductible or an aggregate cap on losses. As a result, there is no guarantee that we will recover any amounts with respect to losses due to breaches by the sellers of their representations and warranties. In addition, the total amount of costs and expenses that we may incur with respect to liabilities associated with acquired properties and entities may exceed our expectations, which may adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.

We have previously engaged in and may continue to engage in acquisitions, such as the AboveNet, Allstream and Electric Lightwave acquisitions that are large or include products outside of the traditional communications infrastructure product base, which may present greater challenges to integrate than other acquisitions and may expose us

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to different or additional business risks. Difficulties with integration could cause material customer disruption and dissatisfaction, which could in turn increase churn and reduce new sales. Additionally, we may not be able to integrate acquired businesses in a manner that permits us to realize the cost synergies we anticipate in the time, manner, or amount we currently expect, or at all. Our actual cost synergies, cost savings, growth opportunities, and efficiency and operational benefits resulting from any acquisition may be lower and may take longer to realize than we currently expect. In addition, some recently acquired companies have had Adjusted EBITDA margins that were lower than ours, which had a negative impact on our overall Adjusted EBITDA margins. Electric Lightwave had a lower Adjusted EBITDA margin than we do; future acquisitions may also have lower Adjusted EBITDA margins. In addition, as a result of our frequent acquisitions, research analysts’ valuation models may not take into account current acquisitions, or they may not correctly or timely include the effects of such acquisitions, which may cause our reported results to differ from their expectations.

We may incur additional debt to assist in the funding of these potential transactions, which may increase our leverage. Further, additional transactions could cause disruption of our ongoing business and divert management’s attention from the management of daily operations to the closing and integration of the acquired business. Acquisitions also involve other operational and financial risks such as:

·

increased demand on our existing employees and management related to the increase in the size of the business and the possible distraction from our existing business due to the acquisition;

·

loss of key employees and salespeople of the acquired business;

·

liabilities of the acquired business, both unknown and known at the time of the consummation of the acquisition;

·

discovery that the financial statements we relied on to buy a business were incorrect;

·

expenses associated with the integration of the operations of the acquired business;

·

the possibility of future impairment, write-downs of goodwill and other intangibles associated with the acquired business;

·

finding that the services and operations of the acquired business do not meet the level of quality of those of our existing services and operations; and

·

determining that the internal controls of the acquired business were inadequate.

We are growing rapidly and may not maintain or efficiently manage our growth.

We have rapidly grown our company through acquisitions of companies and assets as well as expansion of our own network and the acquisition of new customers through our own sales efforts. We also intend to continue to grow our company, including through acquisitions, some of which may be large. Customers can be reluctant to switch providers of bandwidth services because it can involve substantial expense and technical difficulty. That can make it harder for us to acquire new customers through our own sales efforts. Our expansion may place strains on our management and our operational and financial infrastructure. Our ability to manage our growth will be particularly dependent upon our ability to:

·

expand, develop, and retain an effective sales force and other qualified personnel;

·

maintain the quality of our operations and our service offerings;

·

attract customers to switch from their current providers to us in spite of the costs associated with switching providers;

·

maintain and enhance our system of internal controls to ensure timely and accurate reporting; and

·

expand our operational information systems in order to support our growth, including integrating new customers without disruption.

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If we fail to hire and retain qualified executives, managers and employees, our operating results could be harmed.

 

Our future success depends on our ability to identify, hire, train and retain executives, managers and employees with technological, engineering, operational, marketing, sales, administrative and managerial skills. There is a shortage of qualified personnel in several of these fields. We compete with several other companies for this limited pool of potential employees. As our industry increasingly becomes more competitive, it could become especially difficult to attract and retain top personnel with skills in high demand. In addition, subject to limited exceptions, none of the members of our management team and other key employees have long-term employment agreements. For all these reasons, there is no assurance that our efforts to recruit and retain qualified personnel will be successful.

 

We have agreements with customers that are dependent on government funding, which may not be available.

We have contracts with customers that include appropriations clauses that permit the customer to terminate the contract if expected government funding for the project to which the contract relates is unavailable.  There is no assurance that the government funding will be available for these contracts and that they will not be terminated. 

In recent years the portion of our revenue relating to government-funded programs such as the E-rate program, a program mandated by Congress in 1996 and implemented by the FCC in 1997 in order to make telecommunications and information services more affordable for schools and libraries in America, has increased.  There can be no assurance that the E-rate program and other such programs will continue or will continue to be funded at current levels in the future.

Service level agreements in our customer agreements could subject us to liability or the loss of revenue.

Our contracts with customers typically contain service guarantees (including network availability) and service delivery date targets, which could enable customers to claim credits and, under certain conditions, terminate their agreements. Our inability to meet our service level guarantees could adversely affect our revenue. In Fiscal 2017, lost revenue from failure to meet service level guarantees was approximately $2.6 million. While we typically have carve-outs for force majeure events, many events, such as fiber cuts, equipment failure and third-party vendors being unable to meet their underlying commitments with us, could impact our ability to meet our service level agreements.

Any failure of our physical infrastructure or services could lead to significant costs and disruptions.

Our business depends on providing customers with highly reliable service. The services we provide are subject to failure resulting from numerous factors, including:

·

human error;

·

power loss;

·

improper building maintenance by the landlords of the buildings in which our data centers are located;

·

physical or electronic security breaches;

·

fire, earthquake, hurricane, flood, and other natural disasters;

·

water damage;

·

the effect of war, terrorism, and any related conflicts or similar events worldwide; and

·

sabotage and vandalism.

Problems within our network or our data centers, whether within our control or the control of our landlords or other third-party providers, could result in service interruptions or equipment damage. As current and future customers increase their power usage in our facilities over time, the remaining available power for future customers could limit our ability to grow our business and increase occupancy rates or network density within our existing facilities.  Accordingly, we may not be able to efficiently upgrade or change these systems to meet new demands without incurring significant costs that we may not be able to pass on to our customers. In the past, we have experienced disruptions in our network attributed to equipment failure and power outages. Although such disruptions have been remedied and the network has been stabilized, there can be no assurance that similar disruptions will not occur in the future. Given the service level agreement obligations we typically have in our customer contracts, such disruptions could result in customer credits;

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however, we cannot assume that our customers will accept these credits as compensation in the future, and we may face additional liability or loss of customers.

We use franchises, licenses, permits, rights-of-way, conduit leases, fiber agreements, and property leases, which could be canceled or not renewed.

We must maintain rights-of-way, franchises, and other permits from railroads, utilities, state highway authorities, local governments, transit authorities, and others to operate our owned fiber network. We cannot be certain that we will be successful in maintaining these rights-of-way agreements or obtaining future agreements on acceptable terms. Some of these agreements are short-term or revocable at will, and we cannot assure you that we will continue to have access to existing rights-of-way after they have expired or terminated. If a material portion of these agreements are terminated or are not renewed, we might be forced to abandon our networks, which may result in impairment charges. In order to operate our networks, we must also maintain fiber leases and IRU agreements that we have with public and private entities. There is no assurance that we will be able to renew those fiber routes on favorable terms, or at all. If we are unable to renew those fiber routes on favorable terms, we may face increased costs or reduced revenues.

In order to expand our network to new locations, we often need to obtain additional rights-of-way, franchises, and other permits. Our failure to obtain these rights in a prompt and cost-effective manner may prevent us from expanding our network, which may be necessary to meet our contractual obligations to our customers and could expose us to liabilities.

If we lose or are unable to renew key real property leases where we have located our POPs, it could adversely affect our services and increase our costs, as we would be required to restructure our network and move our POPs.

Our operations, financial performance and liquidity are materially reliant on key suppliers and vendors.

We depend on a limited number of suppliers and vendors for equipment and services relating to our network infrastructure. To the extent that proprietary technology of a supplier is an integral component of our network, we may have limited flexibility to purchase key network components from alternative suppliers. We also rely on a limited number of software vendors to support our business management systems. In the event it becomes necessary to seek alternative suppliers and vendors, we may be unable to obtain satisfactory replacement supplies or services on economically attractive terms, on a timely basis, or at all, which could increase costs or cause disruptions in our services.

 

We are required to maintain, repair, upgrade, and replace our network and our facilities, the cost of which could materially impact our results and our failure to do so could irreparably harm our business.

Our business requires that we maintain, repair, upgrade, and periodically replace our facilities and networks. This requires management time and capital expenditures. In the event that we fail to maintain, repair, upgrade, or replace essential portions of our network or facilities, it could lead to a material degradation in the level of service that we provide to our customers. Our networks can be damaged in a number of ways, including by other parties engaged in construction close to our network facilities. In the event of such damage, we will be required to incur expenses to repair the network. We could be subject to significant network repair and replacement expenses in the event a terrorist attack or a natural disaster damages our network. Further, the operation of our network requires the coordination and integration of sophisticated and highly specialized hardware and software. Our failure to maintain or properly operate this can lead to degradations or interruptions in customer service. Our failure to provide proper customer service could result in claims from our customers, early termination of contracts, and damage to our reputation.

Our debt level could negatively impact our financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and business prospects and could prevent us from fulfilling our obligations under our outstanding indebtedness. In the future, we may incur substantially more indebtedness, which could further increase the risks associated with our leverage.

As of June 30, 2017, our total debt (including capital lease obligations and before any unamortized discounts, premiums or debt issuance costs) was $5,710.3 million, primarily consisting of the following indebtedness incurred by our subsidiaries, Zayo Group, LLC (“ZGL”) and Zayo Capital, Inc. (“Zayo Capital”): $1,430.0 million of 6.00% senior unsecured notes due 2023 (the “2023 Unsecured Notes”), $900.0 million of 6.375% senior unsecured notes due 2025 (the “2025 Unsecured Notes”), $1,350.0 million of 5.75% senior unsecured notes due 2027 (the “2027 Unsecured Notes”, collectively with the 2023 and 2025 Unsecured Notes, the “Notes”), a $498.8 million senior secured term loan

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facility due 2021, a $1,429.9 million senior secured term loan facility due 2024 (the “Term Loan Facility”) and $101.6 million in capital lease obligations. In addition, ZGL and Zayo Capital have a $450.0 million senior secured revolving credit facility  (the “Revolver,” and collectively with the Term Loan Facility, the “Credit Facility”), of which $442.2 million was available at June 30, 2017, subject to certain conditions. Subject to the limitations set forth in the indentures (the “Indentures”) governing the Notes and the agreement governing the Credit Facilities (the “Credit Agreement”), ZGL may incur additional indebtedness (including additional first lien obligations) in the future. If new indebtedness is added to our current levels of indebtedness, the related risks that we now face in light of our current debt level, including our possible inability to service our debt, could intensify.  Our level of debt could have important consequences, including the following:

·

making it more difficult for us to satisfy our obligations under our debt agreements;

·

requiring us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to required payments on debt, thereby reducing the availability of cash flow for working capital, capital expenditures, and other general business activities;

·

limiting our ability to obtain additional financing in the future for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, and general corporate and other activities;

·

limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry in which we operate;

·

increasing our vulnerability to both general and industry-specific adverse economic conditions;

·

placing us at a competitive disadvantage relative to less leveraged competitors; and

·

preventing us from raising the funds necessary to repurchase the Notes tendered to ZGL upon the occurrence of certain changes of control, which would constitute a default under the Indentures.

Cash payments for interest, net of capitalized interest, which are reflected in our cash flows from operating activities, during the year ended June 30, 2017 were $195.6 million, and represented 21% of our cash flows from operating activities. Cash payments related to principal payments on our debt obligations (including capital leases) during the year ended June 30, 2017 were $7.9 million (exclusive of our $1,837.4 million January Term Loan Facility amendment and our $570.1 million prepayment on our Term Loan Facility), which are reflected in our cash flows from financing activities, and represented less than 1.0% of our cash flows from operating activities during the period.

We may not be able to generate enough cash flow to meet our debt obligations.

Our future cash flow may be insufficient to meet our debt obligations and commitments. Any insufficiency could negatively impact our business. A range of economic, competitive, business, regulatory, and industry factors will affect our future financial performance, and, as a result, our ability to generate cash flow from operations and to pay our debt. Many of these factors, such as economic and financial conditions in our industry and the U.S. or the global economy, or competitive initiatives of our competitors, are beyond our control.

If we do not generate enough cash flow from operations to satisfy our debt obligations, we may have to undertake alternative financing plans, such as:

·

reducing or delaying capital investments;

·

raising additional capital;

·

refinancing or restructuring our debt; and

·

selling assets.

We cannot assure you that we would be able to implement alternative financing plans, if necessary, on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, or that implementing any such alternative financing plans would allow us to meet our debt obligations.

If ZGL is unable to meet its debt service obligations, it would be in default under the terms of the Indentures and the Credit Agreement, permitting acceleration of the amounts due on the Notes and under the Credit Agreement and

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eliminating our ability to draw on the Revolver. If the amounts outstanding under the Credit Facilities, the Notes, or other future indebtedness were to be accelerated, we could be forced to file for bankruptcy.

Our debt agreements contain restrictions on our ability to operate our business and to pursue our business strategies, and our failure to comply with these covenants could result in an acceleration of our indebtedness.

The Indentures and the Credit Agreement each contain, and agreements governing future debt issuances may contain, covenants that restrict ZGL’s ability to, among other things:

·

incur additional indebtedness and issue preferred stock;

·

pay dividends or make other distributions with respect to any equity interests or make certain investments or other restricted payments;

·

create liens;

·

sell or otherwise dispose of assets, including capital stock of subsidiaries;

·

incur restrictions on the ability of its restricted subsidiaries to pay dividends or make other payments to it;

·

consolidate or merge with or into other companies or transfer all, or substantially all, of its assets;

·

engage in transactions with affiliates;

·

engage in business other than telecommunications; and

·

enter into sale and leaseback transactions.

As a result of these covenants, we are limited in the manner in which we may conduct our business, and as a result we may be unable to engage in favorable business activities or finance future operations or capital needs. The ability to comply with some of the covenants and restrictions contained in the Indentures and the Credit Agreement may be affected by events beyond our control. If market or other economic conditions deteriorate, ZGL’s ability to comply with these covenants may be impaired.

In addition, the Credit Agreement requires ZGL to comply with a maximum secured leverage ratio at the end of any fiscal quarter in the event that usage of the Revolver exceeds 35% of the commitments thereunder. Our ability to comply with this ratio may be affected by events beyond our control. These restrictions limit our ability to plan for or react to market conditions, meet capital needs, or otherwise constrain our activities or business plans. They also may adversely affect our ability to finance our operations, enter into acquisitions, or engage in other business activities that would be in our interest.

A failure to comply with the covenants, ratios, or tests in the Indentures or the Credit Agreement, the agreement governing any future indebtedness could result in an event of default under the Indentures, the Credit Agreement or such agreement governing any future indebtedness, as applicable, which if not cured or waived could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

An event of default under the Indentures or the agreement governing any future indebtedness could lead to the acceleration of the obligations under the Notes or such future indebtedness, as applicable. An event of default under the Credit Agreement would allow the lenders to declare all borrowings outstanding to be due and payable or to terminate the ability to borrow under the Revolver. If the amounts outstanding under the Credit Facilities, the Notes or other future indebtedness were to be accelerated, we cannot assure that our assets would be sufficient to repay in full the money owed. In such a situation, we could be forced to file for bankruptcy. 

Our future tax liabilities are not predictable or controllable. If we become subject to increased levels of taxation, our financial condition and operations could be negatively impacted.

We provide telecommunication and other services in multiple jurisdictions across the United States, Canada and Europe and are, therefore, subject to multiple sets of complex and varying tax laws and rules. We cannot predict the amount of future tax liabilities to which we may become subject. Any increase in the amount of taxation incurred as a result of our operations or due to legislative or regulatory changes would be adverse to us. In addition, we may become subject to income tax audits by many tax jurisdictions throughout the world. It is possible that certain tax positions taken

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by us could result in tax liabilities for us. While we believe that our current provisions for taxes are reasonable and appropriate, we cannot assure you that these items will be settled for the amounts accrued or that we will not identify additional exposures in the future.

We cannot assure you whether, when or in what amounts we will be able to use our net operating losses, or when they will be depleted.

At June 30, 2017, we had approximately $1,662.5 million of U.S. federal net operating losses (“NOLs”), which relate primarily to prior acquisitions. Under certain circumstances, these NOLs can be used to offset our future U.S. federal taxable income. If we experience an “ownership change,” as defined in Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code and related Treasury regulations at a time when our market capitalization is below a certain level, our ability to use the NOLs could be substantially limited. This limit could impact the timing of the usage of the NOLs, thus accelerating cash tax payments or causing NOLs to expire prior to their use, which could affect the ultimate realization of the NOLs.

Furthermore, transactions that we enter into, as well as transactions by existing or future 5% stockholders that we do not participate in, could cause us to incur an “ownership change,” which could prevent us from fully utilizing our NOLs to reduce our federal income taxes. These limitations could cause us not to pursue otherwise favorable acquisitions and other transactions involving our capital stock, or could reduce the net benefits to be realized from any such transactions. Despite this, we expect to use substantially all of these NOLs and certain other deferred tax attributes as an offset to our federal future taxable income, although the timing of that use will depend upon our future earnings and future tax circumstances. If and when our NOLs are fully utilized, we expect that the amount of our cash flow dedicated to the payment of federal taxes will increase substantially.

We may be subject to interest rate risk and increasing interest rates may increase our interest expense.

Borrowings under each of the Credit Facilities bear, and our future indebtedness may bear, interest at variable rates and expose us to interest rate risk. If interest rates increase, our debt service obligations on the variable rate indebtedness would increase even though the amount borrowed remained the same, and our net income and cash available for servicing our indebtedness would decrease.

The international operations of our business expose us to risks that could materially and adversely affect the business.

We have operations and investments outside of the United States, as well as rights to undersea cable capacity extending to other countries, that expose us to risks inherent in international operations. These include:

·

general economic, social and political conditions;

·

the difficulty of enforcing agreements and collecting receivables through certain foreign legal systems;

·

tax rates in some foreign countries may exceed those in the U.S.;

·

foreign currency exchange rates may fluctuate, which could adversely affect our results of operations and the value of our international assets and investments;

·

foreign earnings may be subject to withholding requirements or the imposition of tariffs, exchange controls or other restrictions;

·

difficulties and costs of compliance with foreign laws and regulations that impose restrictions on our investments and operations, with penalties for noncompliance, including loss of licenses and monetary fines;

·

difficulties in obtaining licenses or interconnection arrangements on acceptable terms, if at all; and

·

changes in U.S. laws and regulations relating to foreign trade and investment.

We may as part of our expansion strategy increase our exposure to international investments and operations.

On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom (“U.K.”) held a referendum in which voters approved an exit from the European Union (“E.U.”), commonly referred to as “Brexit.”  As a result of the referendum, it is expected that the British government will begin negotiating the terms of the U.K.’s future relationship with the E.U. Although it is unknown what those terms will be, it is possible that there will be increased regulatory complexities that may adversely affect our

23


 

operations and financial results. In addition, the announcement of Brexit caused significant volatility in global stock markets and currency exchange fluctuations that resulted in the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against foreign currencies in which we conduct business, which may adversely affect our results of operations and the value of our international assets and investments.

Our international operations are subject to the laws and regulations of the U.S. and many foreign countries, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and the U.K. Bribery Act.

We are subject to a variety of laws regarding our international operations, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and the U.K. Bribery Act of 2010, and regulations issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) and various other foreign governmental agencies. We cannot predict the nature, scope or effect of future regulatory requirements to which our international operations might be subject or the manner in which existing laws might be administered or interpreted. Actual or alleged violations of these laws could lead to enforcement actions and financial penalties that could result in substantial costs.

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, the U.K. Bribery Act and similar anti-bribery laws in other jurisdictions generally prohibit companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. Recent years have seen a substantial increase in anti-bribery law enforcement activity with more frequent and aggressive investigations and enforcement proceedings by both the Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, increased enforcement activity by non-U.S. regulators and increases in criminal and civil proceedings brought against companies and individuals. We have created and implemented a program for compliance with anti-bribery laws. Because our anti-bribery internal control policies and procedures have been recently implemented, we may have increased exposure to reckless or criminal acts committed by our employees or third-party intermediaries. Violations of these anti-bribery laws may result in criminal or civil sanctions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and liquidity.

Our international operations expose us to currency risk.

We conduct a portion of our business using the British Pound Sterling (‘‘GBP’’), Canadian Dollar and the Euro. Appreciation of the U.S. Dollar adversely affects our consolidated revenue. For example, the U.S. Dollar has appreciated significantly against the GBP, Euro and Canadian Dollar recently, which has impacted our consolidated revenues and Adjusted EBITDA and may continue to impact future periods. Since we tend to incur costs in the same currency in which those operations realize revenue, the effect on operating income and operating cash flow is largely mitigated. However, if the U.S. Dollar continues to appreciate significantly, future revenues, operating income and operating cash flows could be materially affected. 

We may be vulnerable to security breaches that could disrupt our operations and adversely affect our business and operations.

Despite security measures and business continuity plans, our information technology networks and infrastructure may be vulnerable to damage, disruptions, or shutdowns due to unauthorized access, computer viruses, cyber-attacks, distributed denial of service, and other security breaches. An attack on or security breach of our network could result in interruption or cessation of services, our inability to meet our service level commitments, and potentially compromise customer data transmitted over our network. We cannot guarantee that our security measures will not be circumvented, resulting in network failures or interruptions that could impact our network availability and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and operational results. We may be required to expend significant resources to protect against such threats. If an actual or perceived breach of our security occurs, the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures could be harmed, and we could lose customers. Any such events could result in legal claims or penalties, disruption in operations, misappropriation of sensitive data, damage to our reputation, and/or costly response measures, which could adversely affect our business. Although we maintain insurance coverage that may, subject to policy terms and conditions (including self-insured deductibles, coverage restrictions and monetary coverage caps), cover certain aspects of our cyber risks, such insurance coverage may be unavailable or insufficient to cover our losses. 

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We may be subject to litigation that could have a substantial, adverse impact on our business 

From time to time we are subject to litigation, including claims related to employment, commercial transactions, construction and real estate.  Irrespective of its merits, litigation may be both lengthy and disruptive to our operations and could cause significant expenditure and diversion of management attention. While we do not view any of our current litigation to be material, current or future litigation could have a material adverse effect on our financial position and operating results, on the trading price of our securities and on our ability to access the capital markets.

If we are unable to renew collective bargaining agreements on satisfactory terms, or we experience strikes, work stoppages or labor unrest, our business could suffer. 

Certain of the employees that we acquired in our Allstream acquisition are covered by collective bargaining agreements. There can be no assurance that such agreements will be renewed on terms favorable to us. If we are unable to renew such agreements on satisfactory terms, our labor costs could increase, which would affect our profit margins. Further, changes in governmental regulations relating to labor relations, or otherwise in our relationship with our employees, including our unionized employees, may result in strikes, lockouts or other work stoppages, any of which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Volatility in the equity markets, interest rates or other factors could substantially increase our pension costs.

We sponsor defined benefit pension plans for certain of our Canadian employees. The difference between plan obligations and assets, or the funded status of the plans, significantly affects the net periodic benefit costs of our pension plans and the ongoing funding requirements of those plans. Among other factors, changes in interest rates, mortality rates, early retirement rates, investment returns, minimum funding requirements and the market value of plan assets can affect the level of plan funding, cause volatility in the net periodic pension cost and increase our future funding requirements. Legislative and other governmental regulatory actions may also increase funding requirements for our pension plans’ benefits obligation.

A significant increase in our pension benefit obligations or funding requirements could have a negative impact on our ability to invest in the business and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

 

Lapses in disclosure controls and procedures or internal control over financial reporting could materially and adversely affect our operations, profitability or reputation.

As disclosed in Item 9A, management identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting in Fiscal 2016 that were remediated during Fiscal 2017. There can be no assurance that our disclosure controls and procedures will be effective in the future or that we will not experience a material weakness or significant deficiency in internal control over financial reporting. Any such lapses or deficiencies may materially and adversely affect our business, operating results or financial condition, may result in restatement of our consolidated financial statements, restrict our ability to access the capital markets, require us to expend significant resources to correct the lapses or deficiencies, expose us to regulatory or legal proceedings, including litigation brought by private individuals, subject us to fines, penalties or judgments, harm our reputation, or otherwise cause a decline in investor confidence and our stock price.

Risks Related to Our Industry

We could face increased competition from companies in the telecommunications and media industries that currently do not focus on bandwidth infrastructure.

Many of our competitors in the bandwidth infrastructure space are other focused bandwidth infrastructure providers that operate on a regional or local basis. In some cases, we also compete with communications service providers who also own certain infrastructure assets and make them available to customers as an infrastructure service. These communication service providers include ILECs, such as AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink, and cable television companies, such as Comcast and Cox. 

25


 

Some of these competitors have greater financial, managerial, sales and marketing, and research and development resources than we do and are able to promote their brands with significantly larger budgets. Most of them are also our customers. If ILECs and cable television companies focus on providing bandwidth infrastructure, it could have a material adverse effect on us. A few of these competitors also have significant fiber assets that they principally employ in the provision of their communications services. If any of these competitors with greater resources and/or significant fiber assets chose to focus those resources on bandwidth infrastructure, our ability to compete in the bandwidth infrastructure industry could be negatively impacted. To the extent that communication service providers, cable television companies, and other media companies choose to distribute their content over their own networks that could reduce demand for our services. Additionally, significant new entrants into the bandwidth services industry would increase supply, which could cause prices for our services to decline.

Consolidation among companies in the telecommunications and cable television industries could further strengthen our competitors and adversely impact our business.

The telecommunications and cable television industries are intensely competitive and continue to undergo significant consolidation. There are many reasons for consolidation in these industries, including the desire for communications and cable television companies to acquire network assets in regions where they currently have no or insufficient amounts of owned network infrastructure. The consolidation within the industry may cause customers to disconnect services to move them to their own networks, or consolidate buying with other bandwidth infrastructure providers. Additionally, consolidation in the industry could further strengthen our competitors, give them greater financial resources and geographic reach, and allow them to put additional pressure on prices for bandwidth infrastructure services.

Certain of our services and facilities are subject to regulation that could change or otherwise impact us in an adverse manner.

Communications services and facilities are subject to domestic and international regulation at the federal, state, and local levels. These regulations affect our business and our existing and potential competitors. Our electronic communications services and electronic communications networks in Europe, Canada and elsewhere are subject to regulatory oversight by national communications regulators, such as the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications (“Ofcom”) and France’s Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes (“ARCEP”). In addition, in the United States, both the FCC and the state public utility commissions or similar regulatory authorities (“State PUCs”) typically require us to maintain licenses, file periodic reports, pay various regulatory fees and assessments, and to otherwise comply with their regulations. Similarly, in Canada, we are subject to the rules and oversight of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (“CRTC”), the Minister of Innovation Science and Economic Development, as well as the laws and regulations of other federal and provincial bodies. Such compliance can be costly and burdensome and may affect the way we conduct our business. Delays in receiving required regulatory approvals (including approvals relating to acquisitions, investments, or financing activities or for interconnection agreements with other carriers), the enactment of new and adverse international or domestic legislation or regulations (including those pertaining to broadband initiatives and net-neutrality), or the denial, modification or termination by a regulator of any approval or authorization, could have a material adverse effect on our business. Further, the current regulatory landscape is subject to change through judicial review of current legislation and rulemaking by the FCC, Ofcom, ARCEP, CRTC and other domestic, foreign, and international rulemaking bodies. These bodies regularly consider changes to their regulatory framework and fee and other obligations. Changes in current regulation or determinations that we have not complied with existing regulations and obligations may make it more difficult to obtain the approvals necessary to operate our business, significantly increase the regulatory fees and other assessments to which we are subject, subject us to potential enforcement proceedings or audits that could result in fines or other penalties where noncompliance has occurred, or have other adverse effects on our future operations in the United States, Canada and/or Europe.

We may be liable for the material that content providers distribute over our network.

Although we believe our liability for third party information stored on or transmitted through our networks is limited, the liability of private network operators is affected both by changing technology and evolving legal principles.  As a private network provider, we could be exposed to legal claims relating to third party content stored or transmitted on our networks.  Such claims could involve, among others, allegations of defamation, invasion of privacy, copyright infringement, or aiding and abetting restricted activities such as online gambling or pornography.  If we decide to

26


 

implement additional measures to reduce our exposure to these risks, or if we are required to defend ourselves against these kinds of claims, our operating results and financial condition could be negatively affected.  

Unfavorable general global economic conditions could negatively impact our operating results and financial condition.

Unfavorable general global economic conditions could negatively affect our business. Although it is difficult to predict the impact of general economic conditions on our business, these conditions could adversely affect the affordability of, and customer demand for, our services, and could cause customers to delay or forgo purchases of our services. One or more of these circumstances could cause our revenue to decline. Also, our customers may not be able to obtain adequate access to credit, which could affect their ability to purchase our services or make timely payments to us. The current economic conditions, including federal fiscal and monetary policy actions, may lead to inflationary conditions in our cost base, particularly in our lease and personnel related expenses. This could harm our margins and profitability if we are unable to increase prices or reduce costs sufficiently to offset the effects of inflation in our cost base. For these reasons, among others, if challenging economic conditions persist or worsen, our operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Disruptions in the financial markets could affect our ability to obtain debt or equity financing or to refinance our existing indebtedness on reasonable terms or at all.

Disruptions in the financial markets could impact our ability to obtain debt or equity financing, or lines of credit, in the future as well as impact our ability to refinance our existing indebtedness on reasonable terms or at all, which could affect our strategic operations and our financial performance and force modifications to our operations.

Changes in our traffic patterns or industry practice could result in increasing peering costs for our IP network.

Peering agreements with other ISPs have allowed us to access the Internet and exchange traffic with these providers. In most cases, we peer with these ISPs on a payment-free basis, referred to as settlement-free peering. We plan to continue to leverage this settlement-free peering. If other providers change the terms upon which they allow settlement-free peering or if changes in Internet traffic patterns, including the ratio of inbound to outbound traffic, cause us to fall below the criteria that these providers use in allowing settlement-free peering, the costs of operating our Internet backbone will likely increase. Any increases in costs could have an adverse effect on our margins and our ability to compete in the IP market.

Terrorism and natural disasters could adversely impact our business.

The ongoing threat of terrorist activity and other acts of war or hostility have had, and may continue to have, an adverse effect on business, financial and general economic conditions. Effects from these events and any future terrorist activity, including cyber terrorism, may, in turn, increase our costs due to the need to provide enhanced security, which would adversely affect our business and results of operations. Terrorist activity could damage or destroy our Internet infrastructure and may adversely affect our ability to attract and retain customers, raise capital, and operate and maintain our network access points. We are particularly vulnerable to acts of terrorism because of our large data center presence in New York. We are also susceptible to other catastrophic events such as major natural disasters, extreme weather, fires, or similar events that could affect our headquarters, other offices, our network, infrastructure, or equipment, all of which could adversely affect our business.

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock

Our stock price may be volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance.

The market price of our common stock may fluctuate significantly in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control. In addition to the other risk factors described herein, these factors include:

·

actual or anticipated fluctuations in our revenue and other operating results;

·

announcements by us or our competitors of significant technical innovations, acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments;

·

changes in operating performance and stock market valuations of other companies in our industry;

27


 

·

the addition or loss of significant customers;

·

fluctuations in the trading volume of our common stock or the size of our public float;

·

announcements by us with regard to the effectiveness of our internal controls and our ability to accurately report our financial results;

·

price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market, including as a result of trends in the economy as a whole;

·

general economic, legal, regulatory and market conditions unrelated to our performance;

·

lawsuits threatened or filed against us; and

·

other events or factors, including those resulting from war, incidents of terrorism or responses to these events.

The stock markets have experienced extreme fluctuations in price and trading volume that have caused and will likely continue to cause the stock prices of many telecommunications companies to fluctuate in a manner unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, stockholders have instituted securities class action litigation following periods of declining stock prices. If we were to become involved in securities litigation, we could face substantial costs and be forced to divert resources and the attention of management from our business, which could adversely affect our business.

If securities or industry analysts do not continue to publish or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock depends on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. Certain securities and industry analysts currently publish research reports with respect to our common stock and certain of our debt securities. If they fail to publish reports about us or our securities regularly, or otherwise cease to cover our Company, demand for our stock could decrease and the trading price of our stock could decline. A downgrade of our stock or the publication of inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business would likely cause our stock price to decline.

Sales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that they might occur, could reduce the price that our common stock might otherwise attain.

We cannot predict what effect, if any, future issuances by us of our common stock will have on the market price of our common stock. In addition, shares of our common stock that we issue in connection with an acquisition may not be subject to resale restrictions. The market price of our common stock could drop significantly if certain large holders of our common stock, or recipients of our common stock in connection with an acquisition, sell all or a significant portion of their shares of common stock or are perceived by the market as intending to sell these shares other than in an orderly manner. In addition, these sales could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional common stock in the capital markets.

Delaware law and our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws contain provisions that could delay or discourage takeover attempts that our stockholders may consider favorable.

Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. These provisions include the following:

·

our board of directors is divided into three classes serving staggered three-year terms;

·

our board of directors has the right to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of the board of directors or due to the resignation or departure of an existing board member;

·

our directors are not elected by cumulative voting, which would allow less than a majority of stockholders to elect director candidates;

·

advance notice of nominations for election to the board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon at a stockholders meeting is required;

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·

our board of directors may alter our bylaws without obtaining stockholder approval;

·

our board of directors may issue, without stockholder approval, up to 50,000,000 shares of preferred stock with terms set by the board of directors, certain rights of which could be senior to those of our common stock;

·

stockholders do not have the right to call a special meeting of stockholders or to take action by written consent in lieu of a meeting;

·

approval of at least two-thirds of the shares outstanding and entitled to vote thereon is required to amend or repeal, or adopt any provision inconsistent with, our amended and restated bylaws or the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation regarding, among other items, the election and removal of directors; and

·

directors may be removed from office only for cause.

We have elected not to be governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”); however, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation includes similar provisions providing that we may not engage in certain “business combinations” with any “interested stockholder” for three years following the time that such stockholder became an interested stockholder, unless the business combination is approved in a prescribed manner. A “business combination” includes, among other things, a merger, asset or stock sale or other transaction resulting in a financial benefit to the interested stockholder. An “interested stockholder” is a person who, together with affiliates and associates, owns, or did own, within three years prior to the determination of interested stockholder status, 15% or more of a corporation’s voting stock. Pursuant to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, the term “interested stockholder” does not include certain entities listed in our certificate of incorporation that were preferred equity holders of CII at the time of our IPO (the “Exempt Stockholders”), each of their respective affiliates, and any of their respective direct or indirect transferees and any group as to which such persons are a party.

These provisions may prohibit large stockholders (with the exception of the Exempt Stockholders described above), particularly those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with us.  These provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws and the DGCL could discourage potential takeover attempts, could reduce the price that investors are willing to pay for shares of our common stock in the future and could potentially result in the market price of our common stock being lower than it otherwise would be.

In addition, our debt agreements may require very significant payments if we have a change of control, which reduces the possibility that such an event will occur.

Our directors, executive officers, holders of more than 5% of our common stock, together with their affiliates, continue to have substantial control over the company.

Our directors, executive officers, and holders of more than 5% of our common stock, together with their affiliates, beneficially owned, in the aggregate, approximately 40% of our outstanding common stock as of June 30, 2017. As a result, these stockholders, acting together, would have the ability to effectively control the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and any merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets. In addition, these stockholders, acting together, would have the ability to effectively control our management and affairs. Accordingly, this concentration of ownership might harm the market price of our common stock by:

·

delaying, deferring or preventing a change in control;

·

impeding a merger, consolidation, takeover or other business combination involving us; or

·

discouraging a potential acquirer from making a tender offer or otherwise attempting to obtain control.

We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our common stock. ZGL’s ability to pay dividends to us is limited by the Credit Agreement and Indentures, which may in turn limit our ability to pay dividends on our common stock. Our ability to pay dividends may also be restricted by the terms of any future credit agreement or any future debt or preferred securities of ours or of our subsidiaries. We currently intend to retain any future earnings to finance the

29


 

operation and expansion of our business, and we do not expect to declare or pay any dividends in the foreseeable future. As a result, you may only receive a return on your investment in our common stock if the market price of our common stock increases.

ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None.

ITEM 2. PROPERTIES

Our principal properties are fiber optic networks and their component assets. We own a majority of the communications equipment required for operating the network and our business. As of June 30, 2017, we own or lease approximately 123,841 route miles or 10,438,246 fiber miles. We provide colocation and interconnection services utilizing our own data centers located within major carrier hotels and other strategic buildings in 49 locations throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. We generally do not own the buildings where we provide our colocation and interconnection services; however, the zColo group manages approximately 870,000 square feet of billable colocation space. See “Item 1. Business” for additional discussion related to our network and colocation properties.

We lease our corporate headquarters in Boulder, Colorado as well as regional offices and sales, administrative and other support offices. Our corporate headquarters located at 1805 29th Street, Suite 2050, Boulder, Colorado is approximately 30,000 square feet. We lease properties to locate the POPs necessary to operate our networks. Office and POP space is leased in the markets where we maintain our network and generally averages 17,000 square feet. Each of our business units utilize these facilities.  The majority of our leases have renewal provisions at either fair market value or a stated escalation above the last year of the current term.

ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

In the ordinary course of business, we are from time to time party to various litigation matters that we believe are incidental to the operation of our business. We record an appropriate provision when the occurrence of loss is probable and can be reasonably estimated. We cannot estimate with certainty our ultimate legal and financial liability with respect to any such pending litigation matters, and it is possible one or more of them could have a material adverse effect on us. However, we believe that the outcome of any such pending litigation matters will not have a material adverse effect upon our results of operations, our consolidated financial condition, or our liquidity.

ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

Not Applicable

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PART II

ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED SHAREHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Holders of Our Common Stock

Our common stock has traded on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) under the symbol “ZAYO” since October 17, 2014. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for our common stock. Our IPO was priced at $19.00 per share on October 16, 2014. The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low sales prices per share of our common stock as reported on the NYSE. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Ended June 30, 2017

 

High

 

Low

First Quarter

 

 

30.59

 

 

 

27.16

 

Second Quarter

 

35.65

 

 

29.48

 

Third Quarter

 

34.42

 

 

29.30

 

Fourth Quarter

 

35.49

 

 

30.65

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Ended June 30, 2016

 

High

 

Low

First Quarter

 

 

29.62

 

 

 

23.91

 

Second Quarter

 

27.74

 

 

21.89

 

Third Quarter

 

27.10

 

 

19.59

 

Fourth Quarter

 

28.27

 

 

23.68

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On August 17, 2017, the closing price per share of our common stock on the NYSE was $33.36 per share, and there were approximately 169 stockholders of record of our common stock. The number of holders of record is based upon the actual number of holders registered at such date and does not include holders of shares in “street name” or persons, partnerships, associates, corporations or other entities in security position listings maintained by depositories.

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Stock Performance Graph

The following graph illustrates the cumulative total stockholder return on our common stock from our IPO in October 2014 through June 30, 2017, compared to the S&P 500 Index and the NASDAQ Telecommunications Index. The comparison assumes a hypothetical investment in our common stock and in each of the foregoing indices of $100 at October 17, 2014, and assumes that all dividends were reinvested. Shareholder returns over the indicated period are based on historical data and should not be considered indicative of future shareholder returns. The graph and related disclosure in no way reflect our forecast of future financial performance. 

Picture 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 17, 2014

June 30, 2015

June 30, 2016

June 30, 2017

Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. Common Stock

$100

$116.76

$126.71

$140.09

S&P 500 Index

$100

$109.26

$111.14

$128.19

NASDAQ Telecommunications Index

$100

$109.97

$108.86

$123.89

 

The above performance graph shall not be deemed to be incorporated by reference by means of any general statement incorporating by reference this Annual Report on Form 10-K into any filing under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, except to the extent that the Company specifically incorporates such information by reference, and shall not otherwise be deemed filed under such acts.

Dividend Policy

No dividends have been declared or paid on our shares of common stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings for use in the operation of our business, and therefore we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any future determination to pay dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend upon our financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, capital requirements, and other factors that our board of directors deems relevant. We are a holding company, and substantially all of our operations are carried out by ZGL and its subsidiaries. ZGL’s ability to pay dividends to us is limited by the Credit Agreement and Indentures, which may in turn limit our ability to pay dividends on our common stock. Our ability to pay dividends may also be restricted by the terms of any future credit agreement or any future debt or preferred securities.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

We did not repurchase any of our common stock in the quarter ended June 30, 2017. 

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ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

The following table presents selected historical consolidated financial information for Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. for the periods and as of the dates indicated. The selected historical consolidated financial information as of and for the years ended June 30, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 is derived from, and qualified by reference to, our audited consolidated financial statements and should be read in conjunction with such audited consolidated financial statements and related notes and “Item 7: Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” included elsewhere in this Annual Report.  These historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Ended June 30,

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

2015

    

2014

    

2013

 

 

(in millions, except for per share data)

Consolidated Statements of Operations Data

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revenue

 

$

2,199.8

 

$

1,721.7

 

$

1,347.1

 

$

1,123.2

 

$

1,004.4

Operating costs and expenses

 

 

1,826.0

 

 

1,481.4

 

 

1,178.1

 

 

1,067.1

 

 

894.8

Operating income

 

 

373.8

 

 

240.3

 

 

169.0

 

 

56.1

 

 

109.6

Other expenses, net

 

 

(269.7)

 

 

(308.0)

 

 

(333.1)

 

 

(200.4)

 

 

(279.4)

(Loss)/earnings from continuing operations before income taxes

 

 

104.1

 

 

(67.7)

 

 

(164.1)

 

 

(144.3)

 

 

(169.8)

Provision/(benefit) for income taxes

 

 

18.4

 

 

8.5

 

 

(8.8)

 

 

37.3

 

 

(24.2)

Income/(loss) from continuing operations

 

 

85.7

 

 

(76.2)

 

 

(155.3)

 

 

(181.6)

 

 

(145.6)

Earnings from discontinued operations, net of income taxes

 

 

 —

 

 

 —

 

 

 -

 

 

2.3

 

 

8.4

Net income/(loss)

 

$

85.7

 

$

(76.2)

 

$

(155.3)

 

$

(179.3)

 

$

(137.2)

Weighted-average shares used to compute net loss per share:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic

 

 

243.9

 

 

243.3

 

 

235.4

 

 

223.0

 

 

223.0

Diluted

 

 

246.8

 

 

243.3

 

 

235.4

 

 

223.0

 

 

223.0

Income/(loss) from continuing operations per share:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic and diluted

 

$

0.35

 

$

(0.31)

 

$

(0.66)

 

$

(0.81)

 

$

(0.65)

Earnings from discontinued operations per share

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic and diluted

 

$

 —

 

$

 —

 

$

 —

 

$

0.01

 

$

0.04

Net income/(loss) per share

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic and diluted

 

$

0.35

 

$

(0.31)

 

$

(0.66)

 

$

(0.80)

 

$

(0.61)

Consolidated Balance Sheet Data (at period end):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cash and cash equivalents

 

$

220.7

 

$

170.7

 

$

308.6

 

$

297.4

 

$

91.3

Property and equipment, net

 

 

5,016.0

 

 

4,079.5

 

 

3,299.2

 

 

2,822.4

 

 

2,437.7

Total assets

 

 

8,739.4

 

 

6,727.5

 

 

6,094.6

 

 

4,981.7

 

 

4,152.1

Long-term debt and capital lease obligations, including current portion

 

 

5,639.3

 

 

4,136.0

 

 

3,701.4

 

 

3,179.0

 

 

2,744.8

Total stockholders' equity

 

 

1,410.5

 

 

1,219.2

 

 

1,211.2

 

 

416.4

 

 

606.3

 

 

33


 

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Annual Report”), and in other filings by Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. (“we” or “us”), with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) that is not historical by nature constitutes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  These forward-looking statements typically include words such as “believes,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “estimates,” “projects,” “could,” “may,” “will,” “should,” or “anticipates,” or the negatives thereof, other variations thereon or comparable terminology, or discuss strategy. No assurance can be given that future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements will be achieved, and actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to our financial and operating prospects, current economic trends, future opportunities, ability to retain existing customers and attract new ones, our acquisition strategy and ability to integrate acquired companies and assets and achieve our planned synergies, outlook of customers, reception of new products and technologies, and strength of competition and pricing. Other factors and risks that may affect our business and future financial results are detailed in our SEC filings, including, but not limited to, those described under “Item 1A: Risk Factors” and in this “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” We caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their respective dates. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Annual Report or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as may be required by law.

The following discussion and analysis should be read together with our audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report.

Amounts presented in this Item 7 are rounded. As such, rounding differences could occur in period-over-period changes and percentages reported throughout this Item 7.

Overview

Introduction

We are a large and fast growing provider of bandwidth infrastructure in the United States, Europe and Canada. Our products and services enable mission-critical, high-bandwidth applications, such as cloud-based computing, video, mobile, social media, machine-to-machine connectivity, and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Key products include leased dark fiber, fiber to cellular towers and small cell sites, dedicated wavelength connections, Ethernet, IP connectivity, cloud services and other high-bandwidth offerings. We provide our services over a unique set of dense metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks and through our interconnect-oriented data center facilities. Our fiber networks and data center facilities are critical components of the overall physical network architecture of the Internet and private networks. Our customer base includes some of the largest and most sophisticated consumers of bandwidth infrastructure services, such as wireless service providers; telecommunications service providers; financial services companies; social networking, media, and web content companies; education, research, and healthcare institutions; and governmental agencies. We typically provide our bandwidth infrastructure services for a fixed monthly recurring fee under contracts that vary between one and twenty years in length. We operate our business with a unique focus on capital allocation and financial performance with the ultimate goal of maximizing equity value for our stockholders. Our core values center on partnership, alignment, and transparency with our three primary constituent groups-employees, customers, and stockholders.

On October 22, 2014, we completed an initial public offering (“IPO”) of shares of our common stock, which were listed on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) under the ticker symbol “ZAYO”. Prior to the IPO, we were a direct, wholly owned subsidiary of Communications Infrastructure Investments, LLC ("CII").  Our primary operating subsidiary is Zayo Group, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“ZGL”), and we are headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

Our fiscal year ends June 30 each year, and we refer to the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017 as “Fiscal 2017,” the fiscal year ended June 30, 2016 as “Fiscal 2016,” and the fiscal year ended June 30, 2015 as “Fiscal 2015.”

34


 

Our Segments

We use the management approach to determine the segment financial information that should be disaggregated and presented. The management approach is based on the manner by which management has organized the segments within the Company for making operating decisions, allocating resources, and assessing performance. With the continued increase in our scope and scale, effective January 1, 2017, our chief operating decision maker ("CODM"), who is our Chief Executive Officer, implemented certain organizational changes to the management and operation of the business that directly impact how the CODM makes resource allocation decisions and manages the Company. The change in structure had the impact of revising our reportable segments and re-aligning our existing Strategic Product Groups (“SPGs”) within these segments. We have six reportable segments as described below:

Fiber Solutions. Through the Fiber Solutions segment, we provide raw bandwidth infrastructure to customers that require more control of their internal networks. These services include dark fiber, dedicated lit networks and mobile infrastructure (fiber-to-the-tower and small cell). Dark fiber is a physically separate and secure, private platform for dedicated bandwidth. We lease dark fiber pairs (usually 2 to 12 total fibers) to our customers, who “light” the fiber using their own optronics. Our mobile infrastructure services provide direct fiber connections to cell towers, small cells, hub sites, and mobile switching centers. Fiber Solutions customers include carriers and other communication service providers, Internet service providers, wireless service providers, major media and content companies, large enterprises, and other companies that have the expertise to run their own fiber optic networks or require interconnected technical space. The contract terms in the Fiber Solutions segment tend to range from three to twenty years.

Transport. The Transport segment provides lit bandwidth infrastructure solutions over our metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks. The segment uses optronics to light the fiber, and our customers pay for service based on the amount and type of bandwidth they purchase. The services within this segment include wavelengths, wholesale IP services and SONET. We target customers who require a minimum of 10G of bandwidth across their networks. Transport customers include carriers, content providers, financial services companies, healthcare, government entities, education institutions and other medium and large enterprises. The contract terms in this segment tend to range from two to five years.

Enterprise Networks. The Enterprise Networks segment provides communication solutions to medium and large enterprises. Our services within this segment include Ethernet, enterprise private and connectivity services, managed services and cloud based compute and storage products. Solutions range from point-to-point data connections to multi-site managed networks to international outsourced IT infrastructure environments.

Zayo Colocation (zColo). The Colocation segment provides data center infrastructure solutions to a broad range of enterprise, carrier, cloud, and content customers. Our services within this segment include the provision of colocation space,  power and interconnection services in North America and Western Europe.  Solutions range in size from single cabinet solutions to 1MW+ data center infrastructure environments. Our data centers also support a large component of our networking equipment for the purpose of aggregating and distributing data, voice, Internet, and video traffic. The contract terms in this segment tend to range from two to five years.

Allstream. The Allstream segment provides Voice, SIP Trunking, Unified Communications and scalable data services using a variety of technologies for businesses.  Voice provides a full range of local voice services allowing business customers to complete telephone calls in their local exchange, as well as make long distance, toll-free and related calls. Unified Communications is the integration of real-time communication services such as telephony (including Cloud-based IP telephony), instant messaging and video conferencing with non-real-time communication services, such as integrated voicemail and e-mail.  Unified Communications provides a set of products that give users the ability to work and communicate across multiple devices, media types and geographies. Allstream also offers a range of data services that help small and medium business (“SMB”) customers implement the right data and networking solutions for their business. Those scalable data services make use of technologies including Ethernet services, IP/MPLS VPN Solutions, and wavelength services.  Allstream provides services to approximately 70,000 customers in the SMB market while leveraging its extensive network and product offerings.  These include IP, internet, voice, IP Trunking, cloud private branch exchange, collaboration services and unified communications.

35


 

Other. Our Other segment is primarily comprised of Zayo Professional Services (“ZPS”). We provide network and technical resources to customers who wish to leverage our expertise in designing, acquiring and maintaining networks. Services are typically provided for a term of one year for a fixed recurring monthly fee in the case of network and on an hourly basis for technical resources (usage revenue). ZPS also generates revenue via telecommunications equipment sales.

Factors Affecting Our Results of Operations

Business Acquisitions

We were founded in 2007 with the investment thesis of building a bandwidth infrastructure platform to take advantage of the favorable Internet, data, and wireless growth trends driving the on-going demand for bandwidth infrastructure, and to be an active participant in the consolidation of the industry. These trends have continued in the years since our founding, despite volatile economic conditions, and we believe that we are well positioned to continue to capitalize on those trends. We have built a significant portion of our network and service offerings through 41 acquisitions to date.

As a result of the growth of our business from these acquisitions, and capital expenditures and the increased debt used to fund those investing activities, our results of operations for the respective periods presented and discussed herein are not comparable.

Recent Significant Acquisitions

KIO Networks US Data Centers

 

On May 1, 2017, the Company completed the $11.9 million cash acquisition of Castle Access, Inc.’s (d/b/a “KIO Networks US”) San Diego data centers.  The two data centers, located at 12270 World Trade Drive and 9606 Aero Drive, total more than 100,000 square feet of space and 2 megawatts of critical, IT power, with additional power available.  As of June 30, 2017, $1.2 million of the purchase consideration is held in escrow pending the expiration of the indemnification adjustment period. The acquisition was funded with cash on hand and was considered a stock purchase for tax purposes.

The results of the acquired KIO Networks US business are included in our operating results beginning May 1, 2017.

Electric Lightwave Parent, Inc.

On March 1, 2017, we acquired Electric Lightwave Parent, Inc. (“Electric Lightwave”), an infrastructure and telecom services provider serving 35 markets in the western U.S., for net purchase consideration of $1,426.6 million, net of cash acquired, subject to certain post-closing adjustments.  The acquisition was funded through debt and cash on hand. 

The acquisition added 8,100 route miles of long haul fiber and 4,000 miles of dense metro fiber across Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Salt Lake City, Spokane and Boise, with on-net connectivity to more than 3,100 enterprise buildings and 100 data centers.

The results of the acquired Electric Lightwave business are included in our operating results beginning March 1, 2017.

Santa Clara Data Center

On October 3, 2016, we acquired a data center in Santa Clara, California (the “Santa Clara Data Center”), for net purchase consideration of $11.3 million. The net purchase consideration, which was valued using a discounted cash flow method, will be paid in ten quarterly payments of $1.3 million, beginning in the December 2016 quarter. As of June 30, 2017, the remaining consideration to be paid was $8.9 million.

The Santa Clara Data Center, located at 5101 Lafayette Street, includes 26,900 total square feet and three megawatts of critical power. The facility also includes high-efficiency power and cooling infrastructure, seismic reinforcement and proximity to our long haul dark fiber routes between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The results of the acquired Santa Clara Data Center business are included in our operating results beginning October 3, 2016.

36


 

Clearview

On April 1, 2016, we acquired 100% of the equity interest in Clearview International, LLC, a Texas based colocation and cloud infrastructure services provider, for cash consideration of $18.3 million.  The acquisition was funded with cash on hand.

The acquisition consisted of two Texas data centers. The data centers, located at 6606 LBJ Freeway in Dallas, Texas and 700 Austin Avenue in Waco, Texas, added approximately 30,000 square feet of colocation space, as well as a set of hybrid cloud infrastructure services that complement our global cloud capabilities.   

The results of the acquired Clearview business are included in our operating results beginning April 1, 2016.

Allstream

On January 15, 2016, we acquired 100% of the equity interest in Allstream, Inc. and Allstream Fiber U.S. Inc. (together “Allstream”) for cash consideration of CAD $422.9 million (or $297.6 million), net of cash acquired, subject to certain post-closing adjustments. The consideration paid is net of $29.6 million of working capital and other liabilities assumed by us in the acquisition. The acquisition was funded with an incremental borrowing under our Term Loan Facility (as defined below).

The acquisition added more than 18,000 route miles to our fiber network, including 12,500 miles of long-haul fiber connecting all major Canadian markets and 5,500 route miles of metro fiber network connecting approximately 3,300 on-net buildings concentrated in Canada’s top five metropolitan markets.

The operating results of the acquired Allstream business are included in our operating results beginning January 15, 2016.

Viatel

On December 31, 2015, we acquired 100% of the interest in Viatel Infrastructure Europe Ltd, Viatel (UK) Limited, Viatel France SAS, Viatel Deutschland GmbH and Viatel Nederland BV (collectively “Viatel”) for cash consideration of €92.9 million (or $101.2 million), net of cash acquired. The acquisition was funded with cash on hand.

The Viatel acquisition provides us with Pan-European intercity and metro fiber capability via a 8,400 kilometer fiber network across eight countries. The transaction added 12 new metro networks, seven data centers and connectivity to 81 on-net buildings. Two wholly-owned subsea cable systems provide connectivity on two of Europe’s key routes – London-Amsterdam and London-Paris.

The operating results of the acquired Viatel business are included in our results beginning January 1, 2016.

Dallas Data Center

On December 31, 2015, we acquired a 36,000 square foot data center located in Dallas, Texas for cash consideration of $16.6 million. The acquisition was funded with cash on hand.

The operating results of the acquired Dallas Data Center business are included in our results beginning January 1, 2016.

37


 

Summary of Business Acquisitions

The table below summarizes the dates and purchase prices (which are net of cash acquired and include assumption of debt and capital leases) of all acquisitions and asset purchases through June 30, 2017.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acquisition

    

Date

    

Acquisition Cost

 

 

 

 

(in millions)

Memphis Networx

 

July 31, 2007

 

$

9.2

PPL Telecom

 

August 24,2007

 

 

46.3

Indiana Fiber Works

 

September 28, 2007

 

 

22.6

Onvoy

 

November 7, 2007

 

 

70.0

Voicepipe

 

November 7, 2007

 

 

2.8

Citynet Fiber Networks

 

February 15, 2008

 

 

99.2

Northwest Telephone

 

May 30, 2008

 

 

5.2

CenturyTel Tri-State Markets

 

July 22, 2008

 

 

2.7

Columbia Fiber Solutions

 

September 30, 2008

 

 

12.1

CityNet Holdings Assets

 

September 30, 2008

 

 

3.4

Adesta Assets

 

September 30, 2008

 

 

6.4

Northwest Telephone California

 

May 26, 2009

 

 

0.0

FiberNet

 

September 9, 2009

 

 

96.6

AGL Networks

 

July 1, 2010

 

 

73.7

Dolphini Assets

 

September 20, 2010

 

 

0.2

American Fiber Systems

 

October 1, 2010

 

 

114.1

360networks

 

December 1, 2011

 

 

317.9

MarquisNet

 

December 31, 2011

 

 

13.6

Arialink

 

May 1 2012

 

 

17.1

AboveNet

 

July 2, 2012

 

 

2,210.0

FiberGate

 

August 31, 2012

 

 

118.3

USCarrier

 

October 1, 2012

 

 

16.1

FTS

 

December 14, 2012

 

 

109.7

Litecast

 

December 31, 2012

 

 

22.2

Core NAP

 

May 31, 2013

 

 

7.1

Corelink

 

August 1, 2013

 

 

1.9

Access

 

October 1, 2013

 

 

40.1

FiberLink

 

October 2, 2013

 

 

43.1

CoreXchange

 

March 4, 2014

 

 

17.2

Geo

 

May 16, 2014

 

 

292.3

Neo

 

July 1, 2014

 

 

73.9

Colo Facilities Atlanta

 

July 1, 2014

 

 

51.9

IdeaTek Systems

 

January 1, 2015

 

 

52.7

Latisys

 

February 23, 2015

 

 

677.8

Viatel

 

December 31, 2015

 

 

102.7

Stream Dallas Data Center

 

December 31, 2015

 

 

16.6

Allstream

 

January 15, 2016

 

 

297.6

Clearview

 

April 1, 2016

 

 

18.3

Santa Clara Data Center

 

October 3, 2016

 

 

11.3

Electric Lightwave

 

March 1, 2017

 

 

1,426.6

KIO Networks US Data Centers

 

May 1, 2017

 

 

11.9

Less portion allocated to the discontinued operations of Onvoy, LLC

 

 

 

 

(62.3)

Total

 

 

 

$

6,470.1

 

We completed each of the acquisitions described above, with the exception of Voicepipe and Corelink, with cash raised through combinations of equity issuances and the incurrence of debt. We acquired Voicepipe from certain existing CII equity holders in exchange for CII preferred units, and we acquired Corelink with a combination of cash and CII preferred units.

38


 

Substantial Indebtedness

Term Loan Facility and Revolving Credit Facility

On May 6, 2015, ZGL and Zayo Capital, Inc. (“Zayo Capital”) entered into an Amendment and Restatement Agreement whereby the Credit Agreement (the “Credit Agreement”) governing their senior secured term loan facility (the “Term Loan Facility”) and $450.0 million senior secured revolving credit facility (the “Revolver”) was amended and restated in its entirety. The amended and restated Credit Agreement extended the maturity date of a portion of the then outstanding term loans under the Term Loan Facility from July 2, 2019 to May 6, 2021. The interest rate margins applicable to the portion of the Term Loan Facility due in 2021 were decreased by 25 basis points to LIBOR plus 2.75% with a minimum LIBOR of 1.0%. In addition, the amended and restated Credit Agreement removed the fixed charge coverage ratio covenant and replaced such covenant with a springing senior secured leverage ratio maintenance requirement applicable only to the Revolver, increased certain lien and debt baskets, and removed certain covenants related to collateral. The terms of the Term Loan Facility required us to make quarterly principal payments of $5.1 million plus an annual payment of up to 50% of excess cash flow, as determined in accordance with the Credit Agreement (no such payment was required during Fiscal 2016 or Fiscal 2017).

Under the amended and restated Credit Agreement, the Revolver matures at the earliest of (i) April 17, 2020, and (ii) six months prior to the earliest maturity date of the Term Loan Facility, subject to amendment thereof.  The Credit Agreement also allows for letter of credit commitments of up to $50.0 million.  The Revolver is subject to a fee per annum of 0.25% to 0.375% (based on ZGL’s current leverage ratio) of the weighted-average unused capacity, and the undrawn amount of outstanding letters of credit backed by the Revolver are subject to a 0.25% fee per annum. Outstanding letters of credit backed by the Revolver accrue interest at a rate ranging from LIBOR plus 2.0% to LIBOR plus 3.0% per annum based upon ZGL’s leverage ratio.

On January 15, 2016, ZGL and Zayo Capital entered into an Incremental Amendment (the “Amendment”) to the Credit Agreement. Under the terms of the Amendment, the portion of the Term Loan Facility due 2021 was increased by $400.0 million (the “Incremental Term Loan”). The additional amounts borrowed bear interest at LIBOR plus 3.5% with a minimum LIBOR rate of 1.0%. The $400.0 million add-on was priced at 99.0%. The issue discount of $4.8 million on the Amendment is being accreted to interest expense over the term of the Term Loan Facility under the effective interest method. No other terms of the Credit Agreement were amended.  The Incremental Term Loan proceeds were used to fund the Allstream acquisition and for general corporate purposes.

On July 22, 2016, ZGL and Zayo Capital entered into a Repricing Amendment (the “Repricing Amendment”) to the Credit Agreement.  Per the terms of the Repricing Amendment, the Incremental Term Loan was repriced at par and will bear interest at a rate of LIBOR plus 2.75%, with a minimum LIBOR rate of 1.0%, which represented a downward adjustment of 75 basis points. No other terms of the Credit Agreement were amended. 

On January 19, 2017, ZGL and Zayo Capital entered into an Incremental Amendment No. 2 (the “Incremental Amendment”) to the Credit Agreement. Per the terms of the Incremental Amendment, the existing $1.85 billion of term loans under the Credit Agreement were repriced at 99.75% with one $500.0 million tranche that bears interest at a rate of LIBOR plus 2.0%, with a minimum LIBOR rate of 0.0% and a maturity date of four years from incurrence, which represents a downward adjustment of 75 basis points along with the lowering of the previous LIBOR floor, and a second $1.35 billion tranche (the “B-2 Term Loan” and along with the $500.0 million tranche, the “Refinancing Term Loans”) that bears interest at a rate of LIBOR plus 2.5%, with a minimum LIBOR rate of 1.0% and a maturity of seven years from incurrence, which represents a downward adjustment of 25 basis points.  In addition, per the terms of the Incremental Amendment, ZGL and Zayo Capital added a new $650.0 million term loan tranche under the Credit Agreement (the “Electric Lightwave Incremental Term Loan”) that bears interest at LIBOR plus 2.5%, with a minimum LIBOR rate of 1.0%, with a maturity of seven years from the closing date of the Incremental Amendment. In connection with the Incremental Amendment the full $2,500.0 million Term Loan Facility including the Refinancing Term Loans and the Electric Lightwave Incremental Term Loan, was issued at a price of 99.75%. Per the terms of the Incremental Amendment, the Revolver matures on April 17, 2020. No other material terms of the Credit Agreement were amended. On April 10, 2017, $570.1 million of the B-2 Term Loan and the Electric Lightwave Incremental Term Loan was repaid from proceeds of issuance of senior unsecured notes as further discussed below. As of June 30, 2017, $1,928.7 million of aggregate principal amount was outstanding under the Term Loan Facility. 

In connection with the Incremental Amendment in January 2017 and early repayment of a portion of the term loan in April, we recognized an expense of $18.2 million during Fiscal 2017 associated with debt extinguishment costs. The $18.2 million loss on extinguishment of debt represents a non-cash expense associated with the write-off of unamortized

39


 

debt issuance costs and the issuance discounts on the portion of the Credit Agreement, as further amended, which was deemed to have been extinguished in accordance with applicable accounting guidance in connection with the Incremental Amendment and was extinguished in connection with the early repayment of a portion of the term loan.  The loss on extinguishment of debt also includes certain fees paid to third parties involved in the Incremental Amendment.

On July 20, 2017, ZGL and Zayo Capital entered into a repricing amendment under the Credit Agreement for the outstanding balances under the B-2 Term Loan and Electric Lightwave Incremental Term Loan (the “Repricing Amendment No. 2”).  Per the terms of the Repricing Amendment No. 2, the B-2 Term Loan and Electric Lightwave Incremental Term Loan was repriced at par and bears interest at a rate of LIBOR plus 2.25%, with a minimum LIBOR rate of 1.0%. No other terms of the Credit Agreement were amended.

The weighted average interest rates (including margins) on the Term Loan Facility were approximately 3.4% and 3.9% at June 30, 2017 and June 30, 2016, respectively. Interest rates on the Revolver as of June 30, 2017 and June 30, 2016 were approximately 3.8% and 3.4%, respectively.

As of June 30, 2017, no amounts were outstanding under the Revolver. Standby letters of credit were outstanding in the amount of $7.8 million as of June 30, 2017, leaving $442.2 million available under the Revolver, subject to certain conditions.

Senior Unsecured Notes

On January 23, 2015, ZGL and Zayo Capital (together, the “Issuers”) completed a private offering (the “January 2015 Notes Offering”) of $700.0 million aggregate principal amount of 6.00% senior unsecured notes due in 2023 (the “2023 Unsecured Notes”).  On March 9, 2015, the Issuers completed a private offering of an additional $730.0 million aggregate principal amount of 2023 Unsecured Notes at a premium of 1% (the “March 2015 Notes Offering”, and together with the January 2015 Notes Offering, the “2023 Notes Offerings”) resulting in aggregate gross proceeds for the 2023 Unsecured Notes of $1,437.3 million.  The issue premium of $7.3 million on the March 2015 Notes Offering is being accreted against interest expense over the term of the 2023 Unsecured Notes under the effective interest method.  The 2023 Unsecured Notes bear interest at the rate of 6.00% per year, which is payable on April 1 and October 1 of each year, beginning on October 1, 2015. The 2023 Unsecured Notes will mature on April 1, 2023.  The net proceeds from the January 2015 Notes Offering were used to fund the Latisys acquisition (see Note 3 – Acquisitions to our consolidated financial statements).   The net proceeds from the March 2015 Notes Offering were used to redeem the remaining $675.0 million of the Issuers’ then outstanding 2020 Secured Notes (as defined below) at a price of 105.75% (the “Second Note Redemption”). As part of the Second Note Redemption, we recorded an early redemption call premium of $38.8 million.  The call premium has been recorded as a loss on extinguishment of debt on the consolidated statement of operations for the year ended June 30, 2015.

On April 14, 2016, ZGL and Zayo Capital completed a private offering of $550.0 million aggregate principal amount of additional 2025 Unsecured Notes (the “Incremental 2025 Notes”). The Incremental 2025 Notes were an additional issuance of the existing 6.375% senior unsecured notes due in 2025 (the “2025 Notes” and together with the Incremental 2025 Notes, the “2025 Unsecured Notes”) and were priced at 97.76%. The issue discount of $15.9 million of the Incremental 2025 Notes is being accreted to interest expense over the term of the Incremental 2025 Notes using the effective interest method. The net proceeds from the offering plus cash on hand were used to (i) redeem the then outstanding $325.6 million 10.125% senior unsecured notes due 2020 (the “2020 Unsecured Notes”), including the required $20.3 million make-whole premium and accrued interest, and (ii) repay $196.0 million of borrowings under the then outstanding secured Term Loan Facility. ZGL and Zayo Capital recorded a $2.1 million loss on extinguishment of debt associated with the write-off of unamortized debt discount on the Term Loan Facility accounted for as an extinguishment during the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2016. Following the offering of the Incremental 2025 Notes, $900.0 million aggregate principal amount of the 2025 Unsecured Notes is outstanding.

On January 27, 2017, ZGL and Zayo Capital completed a private offering of $800.0 million aggregate principal amount of 5.75% senior unsecured notes due 2027 (the “2027 Unsecured Notes”).  The net proceeds of the 2027 Unsecured Notes, along with the Electric Lightwave Incremental Term Loan discussed above, were used to fund the Electric Lightwave acquisition, which closed on March 1, 2017.

On April 10, 2017, ZGL and Zayo Capital  completed a private offering of $550.0 million aggregate principal amount of 5.75% senior unsecured notes due 2027 (the “Incremental 2027 Notes”). The Incremental 2027 notes were an

40


 

additional issuance of the existing 2027 Unsecured Notes and were priced at 104.0%.  The issue premium of $22.0 million of the Incremental 2027 Notes is being accreted to interest expense over the term of the 2027 Unsecured Notes using the effective interest method. The net proceeds from the Incremental 2027 Notes were used to repay certain outstanding balances on the Term Loan Facility that mature on January 19, 2024. Following the offering of the Incremental 2027 Notes, $1,350.0 million aggregate principal amount of the 2027 Unsecured Notes was outstanding as of June 30, 2017.

 

On July 5, 2017, ZGL and Zayo Capital  closed a private offering of $300.0 million aggregate principal amount of 5.75% senior unsecured notes due 2027 (the “July Incremental 2027 Notes”) through an add-on to the 2027 Unsecured Notes issuance priced at 104.25%.  The net proceeds from the July Incremental 2027 Notes were used to further repay certain outstanding balances on the Term Loan Facility that mature on January 19, 2024, resulting in an aggregate principal amount outstanding of $1,618.1 million under the Term Loan Facility. Following the offering of the July Incremental 2027 Notes, $1,650.0 million aggregate principal amount of the 2027 Unsecured Notes are outstanding.

 

Substantial Capital Expenditures

During Fiscal 2017, 2016, and 2015, we invested $835.5 million, $704.1 million, and $530.4 million, respectively, in capital expenditures primarily to expand our fiber network to support new customer contracts. We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures in future periods.

Background for Review of Our Results of Operations

Revenue

Our revenue is comprised predominately of monthly recurring revenue (“MRR”). MRR is related to an ongoing service that is generally fixed in price and paid by the customer on a monthly basis. We also report monthly amortized revenue (“MAR”), which represents the amortization of previously collected upfront charges to customers. Upfront charges are typically related to IRUs structured as pre-payments rather than monthly recurring payments (though we structure IRUs as both prepaid and recurring, largely dependent on the customers’ preference) and installation fees. The last category of revenue we report is other revenue. Other revenue includes credits and adjustments, termination revenue, construction services, and equipment sales.

Our consolidated reported revenue in any given period is a function of our beginning revenue under contract and the impact of organic growth and acquisition activity. Our organic activity is driven by net new sales (“bookings”), gross installed revenue (“installs”) and churn processed (“churn”) as further described below.

Net New Sales.   Net new sales (“bookings”) represent the dollar amount of orders, to be recorded as MRR and MAR upon installation, in a period that have been signed by the customer and accepted by our service delivery organization. The dollar value of bookings is equal to the monthly recurring price that the customer will pay for the services and/or the monthly amortized amount of the revenue that we will recognize for those services. To the extent a booking is cancelled by the customer prior to it being installed, it is subtracted from the total bookings number in the period that it is cancelled. Bookings do not immediately impact revenue until they are installed (gross installed revenue).

Gross Installed Revenue.   Installs are the amount of MRR and MAR for services that have been installed, tested, accepted by the customer, and have been recognized in revenue during a given period.   Installs include new services, price increases, and upgrades.

Churn Processed.   Churn is any negative change to MRR and MAR. Churn includes disconnects, negative price changes, and disconnects associated with upgrades or replacement services. For each period presented, disconnects associated with attrition and upgrades are the drivers of churn, accounting for more than 80% of negative changes in MRR and MAR while price changes account for less than 20%. Monthly churn is also presented as a percentage of MRR and MAR (“churn percentage”).

Given the size and amount of acquisitions we have completed, we have estimated the revenue growth rate associated with our organic activity in each period reported. Our estimated organic growth rate is calculated as if acquisitions closed during the periods presented were closed on the first day of the earliest period presented within this

41


 

Annual Report. In calculating this pro-forma growth figure we add the revenue recorded by the acquired companies’ (including estimated purchase accounting adjustments) for the reporting periods prior to the date of inclusion in our results of operations, and then calculate the growth rate between the two reported periods.  The estimated pro-forma revenue growth rates  are not necessarily indicative of either future results of operations or results that might have been achieved had the acquisitions been consummated on the first day of the earliest period presented.  As we conduct operations outside of the United States of America and have historically acquired companies with functional currencies other than the United States Dollar (“USD”), the estimated pro-forma revenue growth rates may not adequately reflect operational performance as a result of changes in foreign currency exchange rates.

We have foreign subsidiaries that enter into contracts with customers and vendors in currencies other than the USD—principally the British Pound Sterling (“GBP”) and Canadian Dollar (“CAD”) and to a lesser extent the Euro. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates impact our revenue and expenses each period. The comparisons excluding the impact of foreign currency exchange rates assume exchange rates remained constant at the comparative period rate.

Operating Costs and Expenses

Our operating costs and expenses consist of network expense (“Netex”), compensation and benefits, network operations expense (“Netops”), stock-based compensation expense, other expenses, and depreciation and amortization.

Netex consists of third-party network service costs resulting from our leasing of certain network facilities, primarily leases of circuits and dark fiber, from carriers to augment our owned infrastructure, for which we are generally billed a fixed monthly fee. Netex also includes colocation facility costs for rent and license fees paid to the landlords of the buildings in which our colocation business operates, along with the utility costs to power those facilities. While increases in demand for our services will drive additional operating costs in our business, consistent with our strategy of leveraging our owned infrastructure assets, we expect to primarily utilize our existing network infrastructure or build new network infrastructure to meet the demand. In limited circumstances, we will augment our network with additional circuits or services from third-party providers. Third-party network service costs include the upfront cost of the initial installation of such circuits. Such costs are included in operating costs in our consolidated statements of operations over the respective service period.

Compensation and benefits expenses include salaries, wages, incentive compensation and benefits. Employee-related costs that are directly associated with network construction, service installations (and development of business support systems) are capitalized and amortized to operating costs and expenses. Compensation and benefits expenses related to the departments attributed to generating revenue are included in our operating costs line item while compensation and benefits expenses related to the sales, product, and corporate departments are included in our selling, general and administrative expenses line item of our consolidated statements of operations.

Netops expense includes all of the non-personnel related expenses of operating and maintaining our network infrastructure, including contracted maintenance fees, right-of-way costs, rent for cellular towers and other places where fiber is located, pole attachment fees, and relocation expenses. Such costs are included in operating costs in our consolidated statements of operations.

Prior to our IPO, our stock-based compensation expense contained two components, CII common unit awards classified as liabilities and, to a lesser extent, CII preferred unit awards classified as equity. For the CII common units granted to employees and directors, we recognized an expense equal to the fair value of all of those common units that vest during the period plus the change in fair value of previously vested units, and recorded a liability in respect of those amounts. Following the IPO, our stock-based compensation expense contains three components: previously granted CII common unit awards and CII preferred unit awards and restricted stock unit awards made under our new equity compensation program. For previously granted CII common unit awards, following the IPO, we amortize the offering date fair value of those units (including unvested units) over the vesting period based on expected settlement behavior with a corresponding adjustment to equity, as the awards no longer have cash settlement features. For previously granted CII preferred units, we use the straight line method, over the vesting period, to amortize the fair value of those units, as determined on the date of grant. We recognize stock-based compensation expense for restricted stock unit awards granted to employees, members of management, and directors based on their estimated grant date fair value on a straight line basis over the requisite service period, as adjusted for forfeitures. These restricted stock unit awards are primarily equity classified, except certain awards that have not yet been granted to employees or certain sign-on grants to members of management that contain guaranteed monetary awards at multiple vesting dates. Following our IPO, subsequent

42


 

changes in the fair value of the CII preferred and common units and restricted stock unit awards granted generally do not affect the amount of expense we recognize. As of December 31, 2016, all CII preferred and common units were fully vested.

Stock-based compensation expense is included, based on the responsibilities of the awarded recipient, in either our operating costs or selling, general and administrative expenses in our consolidated statements of operations.

Other expenses include expenses such as property tax, franchise fees, colocation facility maintenance, travel, office expense and other administrative costs. Other expenses are included in both operating costs and selling, general and administrative expenses depending on their relationship to generating revenue or association with sales and administration.

Transaction costs include expenses associated with professional services (i.e. legal, accounting, regulatory, etc.) rendered in connection with acquisitions or disposals (including spin-offs), travel expense, severance expense incurred on the date of acquisition or disposal, and other direct expenses incurred that are associated with signed and/or closed acquisitions or disposals and unsuccessful acquisitions. Transaction costs are included in selling, general and administrative expenses in our consolidated statements of operations.

Results of Operations

Refer to “Item 6. Selected Financial Data” for additional financial information for the indicated periods.

Year Ended June 30, 2017 Compared to the Year Ended June 30, 2016

Revenue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Year Ended June 30,

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

 

$ Variance

    

% Variance

 

 

 

 

(in millions)

 

Segment and consolidated revenue:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fiber Solutions

 

$

722.1

 

$

648.8

 

 

$

73.3

 

11

%

Transport

 

 

440.4

 

 

391.4

 

 

 

49.0

 

13

%

Enterprise Networks

 

 

487.4

 

 

359.6

 

 

 

127.8

 

36

%

zColo

 

 

214.0

 

 

195.4

 

 

 

18.6

 

10

%

Allstream

 

 

314.3

 

 

106.2

 

 

 

208.1

 

 

*

Other

 

 

21.6

 

 

20.3

 

 

 

1.3

 

 6

%

Consolidated

 

$

2,199.8

 

$

1,721.7

 

 

$

478.1

 

28

%


* Not meaningful

Our total revenue increased by $478.1 million, or 28%, to $2,199.8 million for the year ended June 30, 2017, from $1,721.7 million for the year ended June 30, 2016. The increase in revenue was driven by our Fiscal 2016 and 2017 acquisitions as well as organic growth.

 

We estimate that the period-over-period pro-forma organic revenue declined by 0.9%. Our pro-forma revenue decline was primarily driven by declining revenue from the voice businesses acquired in our Fiscal 2016 and 2017 acquisitions.  Offsetting this pro-forma decline was organic growth resulting from installs that exceeded churn over the course of both periods as a result of the continued strong demand for bandwidth infrastructure services broadly across our service territory and customer verticals.

 

·

Bookings increased period-over-period from $26.6 million to $26.9 million in combined MRR and MAR, excluding Allstream. The total contract value associated with bookings for the year ended June 30, 2017 was approximately $1,490.0 million, excluding Allstream.

 

·

During the year ended June 30, 2017, the Company recognized net installs of $7.1 million as compared to $9.0 million during the year ended June 30, 2016, excluding Allstream.

 

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·

Monthly churn percentage between the two periods increased to 1.2% from 1.1%, excluding Allstream.

 

We estimate that the period-over-period acquisition-related revenue growth was approximately 29%.

 

The average exchange rate between the USD and GBP strengthened by 14.5% during the year ended June 30, 2017.  The average exchange rate between the USD and Euro strengthened by 1.8%. The average exchange rate between the USD and CAD strengthened by 0.3%. Normalizing our revenue to exclude the impact of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, we estimate that the increase in revenue would have been less between the year ended June 30, 2017 and June 30, 2016 by $14.9 million for a total revenue increase of $463.2 million, or 27%. 

 

Fiber Solutions.   Revenue from our Fiber Solutions segment increased by $73.3 million, or 11%, to $722.1 million from $648.8 million, for the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016, respectively. The increase was a result of both acquisition-related and organic growth.

 

Transport.   Revenue from our Transport segment increased by $49.0 million, or 13%, to $440.4 million from $391.4 million for the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016, respectively. The increase was a result of both acquisition-related and organic growth.

 

Enterprise Networks.  Revenue from our Enterprise Networks segment increased by $127.8 million, or 36%, to $487.4 million from $359.6 million for the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016. The increase was a result of both acquisition related and organic growth.

 

zColo.    Revenue from our zColo segment increased by $18.6 million, or 10%, to $214.0 million from $195.4 million for the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016. The increase was a result of both acquisition related and organic growth.

 

Allstream.   Revenue from our Allstream segment increased by $208.1 million to $314.3 million from $106.2 million for the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016. The increase was a result of acquiring the Allstream business on January 15, 2016 and Electric Lightwave on March 1, 2017. 

 

Other.   Revenue from our Other segment increased by $1.3 million, or 6%, to $21.6 million from $20.3 million, for the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016, respectively. The Other segment represented approximately 1% of our total revenue during the year ended June 30, 2017.

 

The following table reflects the stratification of our revenues during these periods. The substantial majority of our revenue continued to come from recurring payments from customers under contractual arrangements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Year Ended June 30,

 

 

 

2017

    

 

2016

 

 

 

 

(in millions)

 

Monthly recurring revenue

    

$

1,963.3

    

 

90

%

 

$

1,546.0

    

90

%

Amortization of deferred revenue

 

 

117.6

 

 

5

%

 

 

92.5

 

5

%

Usage revenue

 

 

72.1

 

 

3

%

 

 

45.9

 

3

%

Other revenue

 

 

46.8

 

 

2

%

 

 

37.3

 

2

%

Total Revenue

 

$

2,199.8

 

 

100

%

 

$

1,721.7

 

100

%

 

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Operating Costs and Expenses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Year Ended June 30,

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

$ Variance

    

% Variance

 

 

 

 

(in millions)

 

Segment and consolidated operating costs and expenses:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fiber Solutions

 

$

561.3

 

$

478.4

 

$

82.9

 

17

%

Transport

 

 

380.5

 

 

351.6

 

 

28.9

 

8

%

Enterprise Networks

 

 

408.0

 

 

332.4

 

 

75.6

 

23

%

zColo

 

 

195.6

 

 

190.7

 

 

4.9

 

3

%

Allstream

 

 

261.6

 

 

110.1

 

 

151.5

 

 

*

Other

 

 

19.0

 

 

18.2

 

 

0.8

 

4

%

Consolidated

 

$

1,826.0

 

$

1,481.4

 

$

344.6

 

23

%


* Not meaningful

Our operating costs increased by $344.6 million, or 23% to $1,826.0 million for Fiscal 2017 from $1,481.4 million for Fiscal 2016. The increase in consolidated operating costs was primarily due to increased costs as a result of Fiscal 2017 and Fiscal 2016 acquisitions, and the organic growth of our network footprint, partially offset by a $41.8 million decrease in stock-based compensation.

 

Fiber Solutions.   Fiber Solutions operating costs increased by $82.9 million, or 17%, to $561.3 million for Fiscal 2017 from $478.4 million for Fiscal 2016. The increase in operating costs and expenses was primarily a result of a $93.2 million increase in depreciation and amortization as well as our Fiscal 2017 and Fiscal 2016 acquisitions and additional costs associated with the organic growth of our network, partially offset by a $17.7 million decrease in stock-based compensation.

 

Transport.    Transport operating costs increased by $28.9 million, or 8%, to $380.5 million for Fiscal 2017 from $351.6 million for Fiscal 2016. The increase in operating costs and expenses was primarily a result of our Fiscal 2017 and Fiscal 2016 acquisitions and organic growth of our network.

 

Enterprise Networks.    Enterprise Networks operating costs increased by $75.6 million, or 23%, to $408.0 million for Fiscal 2017 from $332.4 million for Fiscal 2016. The increase in operating costs and expenses was primarily a result of Fiscal 2017 and 2016 acquisitions and organic growth of our network.

 

zColo.    zColo operating costs increased by $4.9 million, or 3%, to $195.6 million for Fiscal 2017 from $190.7 million for Fiscal 2016. The increase in operating costs and expenses was primarily a result of Fiscal 2017 and 2016 acquisitions.

 

Allstream.    Allstream operating costs increased by $151.5 million to $261.6 million for Fiscal 2017 from $110.1 million for Fiscal 2016. The increase in operating costs and expenses was primarily a result of acquiring the Allstream business on January 15, 2016 and Electric Lightwave on March 1, 2017.

 

Other.    Other operating costs increased by $0.8 million, or 4%, to $19.0 million for Fiscal 2017 from $18.2 million for Fiscal 2016 as a result of increased revenue from equipment sales. 

 

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The table below sets forth the components of our operating costs and expenses during the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Year Ended June 30,

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

$ Variance

    

% Variance

 

 

 

 

(in millions)

 

Netex

 

$

418.8

 

$

283.0

 

$

135.8

 

48

%

Compensation and benefits expenses

 

 

273.6

 

 

216.8

 

 

56.8

 

26

%

Network operations expense

 

 

244.7

 

 

194.5

 

 

50.2

 

26

%

Other expenses

 

 

147.4