Birch Communications announced that it refinanced its senior credit facility, increasing the senior credit capacity to $175 million. Union Bank joined Bank of America, PNC, Wells Fargo and CoBank in the credit with a commitment of $25 million. Birch will use a portion of the proceeds to pay off its subordinated indebtedness and to fund the acquisition of selected assets of Lightyear Network Solutions.

“We are very pleased to begin a partnership with Union Bank and are impressed with their expertise and knowledge of financing in our industry,” noted Edward James, Birch’s chief financial officer. “This refinancing is transformative. We have increased our access to capital to take advantage of the numerous growth opportunities in front of us and we are significantly lowering our costs of borrowing.”

“This additional funding enables Birch to continue to grow its business and is also confirmation of our overall business strategy and our ability to execute it. We’re proud of our management team, the Birch family of employees and our banking partners who continue to increase their support,” said Vincent M. Oddo, Birch’s president and chief executive officer. “I am pleased that this funding will allow us to continue to seek accretive acquisitions, expand our proprietary IP-network and support the expansion of our products and services to better serve our large and growing base of customers.”

Atlanta, GA-based Birch Communications provides IP-based communications and cloud services to small and medium-sized businesses in select metropolitan areas across the United States.