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Investors Go Nuts for Atlantic Tele-Network

Sung Moss

Yesterday, before the opening bell, a sleepy little telecom outfit called Atlantic Tele-Network(ATNI Quote) announced it was going to acquire wireless assets from Verizon Wireless -- a venture between Verizon(VZ Quote) and Vodafone(VOD Quote)-- for $200 million.

Investors yawned. Then they thought about it. Then they slept on it. Then they dreamed about it.

Today, they lost their freaking minds over it.

Shares of Atlantic were up a whopping 40% by midday as investors realized the potential of the deal. Shares were changing hands up $10.85 to $37.50.

Atlantic currently operates in Guyana, Bermuda, the U.S. Virgin Islands and a mishmash of other places around the country. But the deal will add 800,000 subscribers from rural areas in Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. Verizon had to divest the assets because of regulatory hurdles from its earlier Alltel purchase.

In other words, this deal isn't just a facelift for Atlantic. This deal is a whole-body lift that could transform the company into a national wireless player.

"This is a very attractive transaction for ATN and it accomplishes what we have been patiently seeking over the past few years," President and CEO Michael Prior said in the release yesterday. "It provides ATN with enhanced scale and revenue diversification and enables us to expand meaningfully our US wireless business."

"Coupled with our existing US wireless operations, we will now have significant wireless operations in rural areas of more than 10 states. Including our international operations, we expect to have more than 1,000,000 retail wireless subscribers by transaction close."