BY Richard Summerfield
Following its collapse in late 2021, GTT Communications has finally exited its Chapter 11 bankruptcy and restructuring processes, having removed $2.8bn from its debt pile and brought in new investors.
The company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2021, has agreed a deal with key creditors to amend its reorganisation plan in light of current macroeconomic challenges. As part of the Chapter 11 plan, GTT sold its infrastructure division to I Squared Capital for $2.1bn. That gave the company a head-start on paying off its debts. Now GTT has reduced its debt by approximately 80 percent, according to a statement from the company.
“Today marks the beginning of an important new chapter for GTT,” said Ernie Ortega, chief executive of GTT. “Over the past two years, we have concentrated relentlessly on transforming our business into a customer-focused, managed services provider with a culture of continuous improvement. As we begin 2023 on a new path, I’m tremendously excited about the opportunities ahead.
“We have more exciting developments to share in the coming weeks, but right now I want to thank our employees, customers, and partners, whose confidence in GTT has underpinned our commitment to realizing this Company’s incredible potential. Thanks to these stakeholders, GTT has succeeded in completing its financial restructuring with a renewed focus on customer experience, operational efficiency, and providing the best of what our industry can offer to customers and partners across the globe,” Mr Ortega said.
As part of the company’s restructuring, GTT had previously announced a new board of directors, including a new chairman of the board, Tony Abate. With GTT’s completion of its financial restructuring process, Beau Harbour, managing director at Lone Star, and Alex Grau, managing director at Hudson Advisors L.P., an investment adviser to Lone Star, have joined GTT’s board. Affiliates managed by Lone Star Funds, Anchorage Capital Group, Fidelity Management & Research Co. and Cheyne Capital, collectively, comprise the new investor leadership and own a majority of GTT’s reorganised equity, according to a company statement.
“The Company’s Board and new owners are looking forward to working with Ernie and the entire GTT team to build on the Company’s momentum and our shared vision to serve businesses with network, security and communications needs across multiple locations globally,” said Mr Abate. “GTT is well-positioned to capture the growing demand for bandwidth, cyber-security and managed services as enterprises optimize the performance of their own SaaS and cloud-based applications anywhere in the world.”
Prior to its bankruptcy filing, GTT spent extravagantly on other business, buying companies such as Hibernia Express and Interoute.
News: Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Concluded, GTT Communications Eyes 2023