Videotron acquires Fibrenoire to meet growing demand in the Québec business market

MONTRÉAL, Jan. 7, 2016 /CNW Telbec/ - Videotron has acquired Fibrenoire, a company that provides businesses with fibre-optic connectivity services. The transaction will enable Videotron Business Solutions and Fibrenoire to join forces to meet the growing demand from business customers for fibre-optic connectivity. The purchase price was $125 million.

"We are very pleased to welcome Fibrenoire's talented team to our ranks," said Manon Brouillette, President and CEO of Videotron. "This transaction will strengthen Videotron's leadership in the business telecom market. Combining our expertise and our distinct but complementary facilities will equip us to continue our growth in the Québec business market."

Videotron has acquired all the shares held by the founding shareholders and the majority shareholder, Novacap TMT, a buyout fund that specializes in tech, media and telecom. Fibrenoire is now an independent subsidiary of Videotron. Its head office and the approximately 60 employees who work there will remain in Montréal's Park Extension neighbourhood. The three founding owners, Benjamin Desmarais, President, Rémi Fournier, Vice-President, Sales & Engineering, and Jean-François Lévesque, Chief Technology Officer, will stay in their current positions and continue contributing to the success their company has known since it was founded in 2007,

"Like other recent acquisitions by Quebecor and its subsidiaries, such as Mel's Studios and Postproduction (formerly Global Vision), the addition of Fibrenoire will increase our presence in growing market segments and further diversify our revenue streams," said Pierre Dion, President and CEO of Quebecor. "Videotron Business Solutions is thereby continuing its development while ensuring that the assets and expertise of a fast-growing company remain in Québec hands."

Impressive progress

Fibrenoire provides more than a thousand customers in the Montréal, Québec City, Ottawa and Toronto areas with connectivity services over a fibre-optic network spanning more than 4,500 km. In 2014, Fibrenoire ranked as Québec's fastest-growing company on the PROFIT 500 list, which measures Canadian companies' 5-year revenue growth. In addition to its number 1 position in Québec, Fibrenoire placed 9^th in Canada.

"Our connection with Videotron will give us access to financial resources, technological depth and a fibre-optic network of more than 30,000 km available across Québec," said Benjamin Desmarais, President of Fibrenoire. "Those assets will enable us to better serve business customers. The deal is a win-win that combines our strengths and gives us the means to achieve our ambitions."

Generating growth

"We are confident that Fibrenoire will be a good fit, as its highly entrepreneurial culture is very close to our own corporate values,"said Manon Brouillette. "This acquisition follows the takeover of 4Degrees in 2015, positioning us to meet growing business needs for cloud computing and connectivity, two highly complementary market segments."

Videotron Business Solutions is an integrated provider of business telecommunications solutions, including Internet access services, network solutions, business and mobile telephone services and data hosting. It is a technology leader that serves more than 125,000 businesses via its extensive, high-capacity fibre-optic, coaxial cable and LTE networks.

About Fibrenoire and Videotron

Fibrenoire is a telecommunications company specializing exclusively in fibre-optic connectivity services for businesses in Québec and Ontario. Fibrenoire deploys and operates its own 4,500-km+ fibre-optic network in the Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal and Québec City metropolitan areas. In addition to business solutions, Fibrenoire provides consulting engineering services embracing project delivery and 24/7 technical support as well as network monitoring from its network operations centre (NOC). Fibrenoire is also MEF Carrier Ethernet 2.0 certified and counts a number of international carriers, data centres and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) among its customers. The company has over 60 employees, with its head office in Montréal, Québec. For more information, please visit www.fibrenoire.ca or follow the company on Twitter: @Fibrenoire.

Videotron (www.videotron.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Quebecor Media Inc., is an integrated communications company engaged in cable television, interactive multimedia development, Internet access, cable telephone and mobile telephone services. Videotron is a leader in new technologies with its illico interactive television service and its broadband network, which supports high-speed cable Internet access, analog and digital cable television, and other services. As of September 30, 2015, Videotron was serving 1,745,900 cable television customers, including 1,564,600 Digital TV subscribers. Videotron is also the Québec leader in high-speed Internet access, with 1,559,500 subscribers to its cable service as of September 30, 2015. As of the same date, Videotron had 742,500 subscriber connections to its mobile telephone service and was providing cable telephone service to 1,329,500 Québec households and organizations. For the tenth consecutive year, Videotron was ranked as Québec's most respected telecommunications company, based on a Léger survey.

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SOURCE Videotron

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