With Latest Acquisition USConnect Creates Platform for Growth and Service Opportunities

On February 5, 2014, US Connect Holdings announced that it has completed several previously announced stock acquisitions which significantly expand the Company’s ownership of rural and community-based independent communications providers.

With these latest acquisitions, USConnect now owns and operates seven rural local exchange carriers and their affiliates with operations in five states. USConnect completed its initial acquisition of The Livingston Telephone Company of Livingston, Texas on December 31, 2013. On February 5, 2014, the Company completed a series of additional transactions that added six additional rural local exchange carriers and their affiliated operations to the USConnect family of companies.

Newly acquired RLEC properties include The Rye Telephone Company of Colorado City, Colorado; South Park, LLC of Hartsel, Colorado; Dalton Telephone Company, Inc. of Dalton, Nebraska; Elsie Communications, Inc. of Elsie, Nebraska; S&A Telephone Company, Inc. of Allen, Kansas; and Waverly Hall Telephone, LLC of Waverly Hall, Georgia. Financial terms of the transactions were not announced.

“I want to welcome these new properties and, in particular, their employees to the USConnect family,” said Denny Law, general manager and chief executive officer of Wall, South Dakota-based Golden West Telecommunications and chairman of the USConnect Board of Directors. “Ultimately, the success of any business is rooted in the initiative, energy and efforts of its employees. I look forward to working with our new employees as we collectively move forward to address the advanced communications needs of our customers and realize the USConnect vision.”

“These latest acquisitions represent the culmination of a twelve-month effort to create a platform from which USConnect and its owners can collaboratively pursue additional growth and service opportunities,” said Brad Erwin, chief executive officer of Kingstree, South Carolina-based Farmers Telephone Cooperative, a member of the USConnect Board of Directors and chairman of USConnect’s Acquisitions and Corporate Development Committee. “Over the next several months, the USConnect management team’s attention will be focused on integrating the operations of the various USConnect properties, consolidating operational support systems and enhancing the combined company’s training, marketing and intercompany communications efforts.“

USConnect was formed in 2013 as a platform to promote and facilitate collective efforts to realize growth and efficiencies through acquisitions, develop collaborative initiatives to leverage the collective size and industry expertise of USConnect and its owners, and advocate for the future success and viability of rural and community-based communications providers. USConnect owns and operates seven RLEC properties and their affiliated operations, which collectively serve 19,000 voice, data and video connections over a combined service area spanning 4,400 square miles.

USConnect shareholders include Brazoria Telephone Company of Brazoria, Texas; Dickey Rural Networks of Ellendale, North Dakota; Farmers Telephone Cooperative of Kingstree, South Carolina; Golden West Telecommunications of Wall, South Dakota; and Horry Telephone Cooperative of Conway, South Carolina. Combined, USConnect and its owners employ 1,500 employees, generate revenue of $470 million, and serve 445,000 voice, video and data connections over a collective service area spanning 45,000 square miles.