Eight companies submitted letters of intent to buy or become a partner in Burlington Telecom, the city’s municipally owned communications network.
Burlington is required to sell the company as part of a 2014 settlement with the telecom’s main creditor Citibank. The city will keep a larger portion of the proceeds if the sale is completed by January, 2018.
David Provost, chair of the Burlington Telecom Advisory Committee, said he could not release the names of bidders, but assured the City Council Monday that they do not include any of the 10 largest telecom companies in the United States.
He said it was important to make that clear as a persistent fear expressed by the public is that the city will sell to a large out-of-state corporation.
All eight bids are “viable, bona fide” options, Provost said, and the largest is 2½ times the size of the smallest, though he did not provide dollar figures.
The advisory board will winnow the submissions down to three to five finalists, which will be presented to the City Council in July, Provost said.
The city hopes to have selected a buyer or partner by the fall in order to ink a final deal prior to the January deadline. If a deal happens after that, a smaller percentage of the proceeds will go to the city.
Source: https://vtdigger.org/2017/06/13/eight-companies-submit-bids-burlington-telecom/