Clarity Partners – Communications, Media and Business Services Private Equity Investors

After a Year of Whispers, PrimeCo Finally Announces its Sale

Itasca - June 26, 2001
eprairie.com - By Adam Fendelman

PrimeCo Personal Communications, the oldest wireless moniker in the Chicago market, announced Tuesday that it has agreed to be acquired by a group of telecom investors.

The acquisition is being led by Los Angeles-based Clarity Partners. The other investors are Los Angeles-based Pacific Capital Group, New York-based Trimaran Capital Partners, Chicago-based Green Leaf Ridge Company, New York-based JPMorgan Partners (formerly Chase Capital Partners) and Dallas-based Tregan Partners.

Clarity Partners, which has raised $1 billion in funds, was created last year to invest in telecommunications and media companies. The firm's principals include the co-founders of Bermuda-based telecom firm Global Crossing.

PrimeCo's acquisition, which has been watched for more than a year now, is expected to close in the fall of this year, according to PrimeCo vice president and General Manager Kraig Pyer.

The Department of Justice appointed a trustee on behalf of PrimeCo's parent, Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic Corp.), to divest its PrimeCo properties in Chicago, Houston and Virginia in order to meet antitrust requirements. The Chicago property is the last to be sold.

The deal was inked just in time for Verizon to meet the federal deadline, which would have expired Tuesday.

PrimeCo was close to being sold to Kansas City, Mo.-based Sprint Corp. in May. Another venture capital group, MainsStream PCS Holdings, had agreed to buy PrimeCo last fall for $1.2 billion, but then withdrew the offer after it failed to find funding for the purchase.

Pyre says PrimeCo services and retail stores will continue as usual now and beyond the close of the deal.

"The name and the brand are staying in tact in perpetuity," Pyre said. "PrimeCo [and Primetheus the pink alien] are here to stay. That guy sure has a lot of affection in this town."

PrimeCo owns 20 megahertz of spectrum, which allows it to service approximately 13 million people and 34 stores in Chicago, Rockford, Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington/Normal, Springfield, Decatur, Peoria, South Bend and Fort Wayne.

PrimeCo was the first to introduce an all-digital PCS network in Illinois and Indiana, which launched in November 1996.

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