Lumen Technologies to Sell US Telecom Assets to Apollo for $7.5 Billion

Lumen Technologies plans to sell a swath of its US telecommunications network to Apollo Global Management for $7.5 billion, including $1.4 billion of assumed debt. The investment giant will carve out some of Lumen’s so-called incumbent local exchange carrier assets, a collection of telephone and broadband infrastructure that covers 6 million residential and business customers across 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and Southeast. Lumen’s remaining operations will focus on large business clients, who generate most of its revenue, as well as home-broadband subscribers in 16 states including Colorado, Florida and Washington. The new Apollo-backed company, which aims to accelerate the business’s shift from older copper lines to high-speed fiber-optic technology, will be led by Verizon veterans Bob Mudge, Chris Creager and Tom Maguire, who together built out Verizon’s fiber-based, Fios service. The sale is the latest course change for Lumen, the company known as CenturyLink until its 2020 rebranding; CenturyLink was among the few remnants of the former AT&T monopoly to survive into the 21st Century, though it avoided copying peers’ pursuit of wireless customers and focused its attention on landlines.