QualTek Services, formerly one of the wireless infrastructure industry’s largest turnkey contractors that scaled down during post-Covid years and after emerging from bankruptcy, has been acquired by Atlas Holdings, a company that owns and operates 28 companies in various sectors.
However, this is Atlas’s first acquisition in the telecom space, and they’re hoping to leverage their proprietary technology-driven platforms and highly scalable shared services offering to drive the newly renamed company, InfraServices Group.
QualTek filed for Chapter 11 protection in May 2023 to reduce its debt by more than $300 million. The company emerged from bankruptcy in July 2023 with a revised capital structure and reduced balance sheet debt and interest expense.
Following the bankruptcy, QualTek became delisted as a public company and did not have to file any Securities and Exchange reports regarding the acquisition amount paid for their assets by Atlas. Atlas is a privately held company that has not publicized the acquisition or listed InfraServices as one of its operating companies.
QualTek’s leadership team remains at the helm of InfraServices: CEO Scott Hisey, CFO Michael Michini, CAO Elizabeth Downey, and COO Michael Williams. Eric Bicknese will remain president of the Wireless group, and Tom Mix will remain President of Recovery Logistics.
Founded in 2012, venture capital company Brightstar Capital Partners helped to buoy the company’s growth. In 2021, QualTek went public in a merger with Roth CH Acquisition, providing additional growth capital.
Following the bankruptcy, QualTek’s former shareholders, many of whom obtained shares through company acquisitions such as BACOM, Concurrent, Fiber Network Solutions, Aerial Wireless Services, Vinculums, Vertical Limit, and Velocitel, saw their nest egg vanish.
Whereas some companies that have acquired competitors in some markets in the past years have had to reduce staffing considerably, MasTec and Dycom continue to acquire companies, leaving smaller contractors to question whether the industry will consolidate into a few large contractors.
Dycom Industries’ subsidiary, Ansco & Associates, recently acquired Overland Contracting’s wireless group for $150 million. However, Dycom’s stock nose-dived where it had been trading at its all-time high after the announcement.
Their increased market capabilities and some significant carriers’ dependence on them could help their income. However, in a recent earnings call, Dycom CEO Steven Nielsen wasn’t overly optimistic about near-term work from the $42.5 billion BEAD program that might not be realized for another year.
“…hey, this BEAD thing is coming, these states are getting approved, and so we know that within a year, there’s going to be real activity on that plan, that they may have slowed a little bit going into the back half of the year. But again, hard to tell with real certainty, but it has been an impressive run of state approvals in the last, call it, six weeks,” Nielsen said.
Nielsen will retire on November 30 and will be replaced by COO Dan Peyovich.
Like Dycom and MasTec, Atlas Holdings wants to be one of the industry’s larger infrastructure contractors.
QualTek’s previous acquisition opportunities were most likely hatched during industry networking events such as NATE conferences or executive outreaches.
However, InfraServices is the first company to publicly promote its intention to acquire companies on its website with a mergers & acquisition application.
According to Wireless Estimator sources, MasTec and Dycom considered QualTek an acquisition target.
Multiple companies struggling during the industry downturn have informed Wireless Estimator that they have contacted other companies to see if they would be interested in acquiring their company. However, after their customer base was identified, the carriers who had caused the downward spiral, they were not interested.
An auto-reply email from contractor Dan Soleau to a Wireless Estimator bulletin on Thursday personalized that industry problem: “Unfortunately, it saddens me to say that Limitless Wireless, LLC had to be shut down due to a complete lack of work over the last year. I wish all who worked with us the best of luck in this very unprecedented time in our industry.”
