The CFO's must have seen the low mortgage rate that Mark Zuckerburg received and decided the capital markets were friendly.
There is a lot of debt in telecom - some of it is refinanced for better terms, some to push the expiration date out (which means it can't be repaid under the original terms of the loan), and some of the debt is extended to help pay for operations (like payroll).
- Privately-owned MegaPath Inc. is refinancing its existing debt with the help of Crystal Financial arranging a $165 million senior-secured term loan facility. [channelpartners]
- Broadview Networks had to re-structure its debt. TNCI is still in BK.
- CENX, the carrier Ethernet exchange, needed capital.
- Level3 did a private offering for $300M.
- Birch completed a refinancing of its Senior and Subordinated Credit Facilities to the tune of $110 Million to fund future acquisitions, continued network growth, retirement of existing debt.
- Windstream saddled with $8.7B in debt asks creditors for $900 million more. In 1Q12, WIND refinanced $300M and raised $280M.