TierPoint LLC Gets a Beat Down from Moody’s

In “⛈A Dark "Cloud" on the Horizon⛈,” we noted, in the context of Fusion Connect Inc’s recent troubles ($FSNN), that not all cloud businesses are created equal. This week, another cloud-company, TierPoint LLC, came into view after Moody’s changed the company’s outlook to negative from stable. The private, Missouri-based company provides “colocation, cloud computing, backup and business continuity, managed security, firewall, and professional services,” creating an “Infrastructure-as-a-Service” stack for its customers in the education, energy, financial, healthcare, legal, manufacturing, retail and tech industries.

The company has been on an acquisition spree over the years, gobbling up data center company, Cosentry, data services provider, AlteredScale, and the data services business of Windstream Holdings in 2016. The company, by virtue of the Consentry deal, is a TA Associates Management LP portfolio company.

As you might imagine, with great acquisition sprees come great loads of debt. The company’s balance sheet sports a $700mm first lien term loan, a $220mm first lien revolver and a $220mm second lien term loan. Moody’s points to near-term challenges that might affect the company’s ability to delever including, among other things, “unexpected customer churn volatility in late 2017” proving difficult to overcome. Moreover, margins and growth are down, further complicating efforts to drive the debt leverage down — yes, down — to 7x.