On Tuesday, QualTek LLC, a Bluebell, Pennsylvania-based infrastructure services provider to the North American 5G wireless, telecom, utility and renewable energy sectors, announced that it has bought Miami, Florida utility construction and services company Concurrent Group LLC. Price and other deal terms were not disclosed.
Concurrent provides construction, maintenance and restoration services for utilities, electrical co-ops, and municipally owned power providers. The deal will allow QualTek to expand its service offerings into overhead and underground mid- and high-voltage electrical installation, maintenance, and (significantly) storm restoration. It will also expand QualTek’s geographic footprint into the U.S. Southeast.
“Concurrent is one of the top performing and growth-oriented utility vendors in the Southeast region,” QualTek CEO Scott Hisey said in announcing the deal “Their versatile scope of services and reputation for quality fit well into QualTek’s growth strategy. We look forward to expanding our geographic footprint while welcoming Concurrent to the company.”
The deal for Concurrent marks QualTek’s second acquisition in the month of August. Earlier this month, the company announced a deal to buy Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Broken-Arrow Communications (BACOM), a builder, installer and servicer of wireless communication facilities in 11 Western U.S. states. BACOM’s client base includes major wireless carriers, tower companies and construction management firms. QualTek said upon announcing that deal that BACOM aligned well with its customers’ geographic expansion plans as the buildout of 5G infrastructure gains momentum in the U.S.
In June, QualTek announced that it plans to go public on the NASDAQ Exchange via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) IPO with Roth CH Acquisition Company (ROCR), in a transaction putting an enterprise value of $829 million on the combined company. Post-deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, the combined company will be renamed QualTek Services and trade on the NASDAQ Big Board under ticker QTEK. The company will report within two operating segments: Telecommunications, and Renewables and Recovery.
In announcing the SPAC deal, ROCR called QualTek a “proven leader operating in the early stages of a multi-year cycle of capital deployment by companies in the telecom and renewables sectors,” and one “well positioned to take advantage of significant growth expected from future federal/municipal infrastructure spending,” as evidenced by a current project backlog valued at $1.7 billion.
