GTT Communications emerges from Chapter 11

McLean-based GTT Communications Inc. has completed its financial restructuring process and emerged from Chapter 11 cases, the telecommunications company announced Jan. 3.

“The transformed company is repositioned to focus on providing customers with industry-leading managed network and cloud security services that leverage the company’s global Tier 1 IP network,” GTT wrote in a news release.

The company and some of its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2021. 

“Today marks the beginning of an important new chapter for GTT,” GTT CEO Ernie Ortega said in a statement. “Over the past two years, we have concentrated relentlessly on transforming our business into a customer-focused, managed services provider with a culture of continuous improvement. As we begin 2023 on a new path, I’m tremendously excited about the opportunities ahead.”

Through GTT’s sale of its infrastructure division in 2021 and its financial restructuring process, the company reduced its debt by $2.8 billion, or about 80%, according to GTT. The company announced a new board of directors, including a new chairman, in April 2022. With the financial restructuring completed, two more have been added to the board of directors: Beau Harbour, managing director at Lone Star Funds and Alex Grau, managing director at Hudson Advisors LP, an investment adviser to Lone Star.

“The company’s board and new owners are looking forward to working with Ernie and the entire GTT team to build on the company’s momentum and our shared vision to serve businesses with network, security and communications needs across multiple locations globally.” Tony Abate, chairman of the board, said in a statement. “GTT is well-positioned to capture the growing demand for bandwidth, cybersecurity and managed services as enterprises optimize the performance of their own SaaS and cloud-based applications anywhere in the world.”