HarvardNET Files to Sell Minority Stake in $125 Million IPO
Bloomberg News
June 14, 1999, 4:27 p.m. PT
Washington, June 14 (Bloomberg) -- HarvardNET Inc., provider of high-speed data telecommunications and Internet access to businesses in the northeast U.S., filed for an initial public offering that could raise $125 million.
The Boston-based company, founded in 1992 by Chairman William H. Southworth, owns a computer network between Maine and Virginia that forms part of the Internet backbone, according to its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
HarvardNET provides data services to small and medium-sized business, hosts Web sites, and links big companies with remote offices and telecommuting employees, the SEC filing said.
The company has shifted its focus from dial-up access to digital subscriber lines, which use existing copper phone wires to connect to customers to its network, according to the filing. It also moved to a new a management team beginning last September, when it hired Mark M. Washburn, now chief executive.
Washburn, 36, was elevated to CEO from chief operating officer in February, the filing said. Previously he was a sales executive with Level 3 Communications Inc., an Omaha, Nebraska-based company that's building a global fiber optic network. He owns an 8.6 percent stake in HarvardNET........
Media/Communications Partners, a Boston-based investor, is the top shareholder with a 35.5 percent stake. Two venture capital funds affiliated with Fidelity Investments -- the biggest U.S. mutual fund company and also based in Boston -- hold separate 14.2 percent stakes.
The filing said existing shareholders will retain majority voting control after HarvardNET goes public, giving new investors a minority stake overall.........
The company hired Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. to underwrite the stock sale, with Merrill Lynch & Co. and Salomon Smith Barney Inc. HarvardNET plans to have the shares listed for trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol HNET, its S-1 registration statement said.
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