East-Central Vermont
Fiber-Optic Network
Box 8, White River Junction, VT 05001

For Immediate Release 7/11/2008
Contact Bob Merrill, 802-457-4938, info@ecfiber.net

ECFiber Selects Oppenheimer for Funding

(South Royalton, Vermont) At Tuesday's meeting of the ECFiber Governing Board, Loredo Sola, Executive Committee Chair, announced that ECFiber has engaged Oppenheimer & Co., Inc., a New York-based Investment Bank, to provide financing for ECFiber’s 23-town high- speed fiber-optic network. Oppenheimer will broker a non-recourse capital lease in the form of Certificates of Participation (COPs).

According to Kim Mooers of Sovereign Securities, who is acting as ECFiber’s advisor in the deal, Oppenheimer is essentially breaking the $85M lease into pieces and bringing them to market in a public offering. Each “piece” is called a “certificate of participation” (in the Lease) and the entire mechanism is called a “COPs” financing.

Sola said Oppenheimer was selected from three qualified bidders because of their experience with COPs for fiber-to-the-home projects, their understanding of the project and the deal, their proven track record of succeeding with the sale of the certificates, and their reputation in the market. Apart from a nominal initial signing fee, Oppenheimer has agreed to make all fees and out-of-pocket costs contingent on the success of the financing.

Project Director Tim Nulty, formerly of Burlington Telecom said “This is a very big deal. Oppenheimer is risking a lot of money to put this together. If it doesn’t come through, they get nothing but the signing fee. You can be sure that they would not enter into such an agreement if they were not very confident that they can complete the financing.”

Now begin the important tasks for the ECFiber towns: disclosure and “due diligence”. Oppenheimer needs to be sure that all of the participating towns are on solid financial and legal footing. To ensure that this information is thorough and complete, and that it complies with all legal requirements, ECFiber has retained Greenberg Traurig, a Boston law firm that is well- respected by the financial community, to help the 23 towns provide Oppenheimer with the information it requires.

The “working target date” for closing is currently October 30, but Nulty is cautious. “I’ve done a lot of complex financings and I know that there are always bumps in the road. Realistically, I will be delighted if the money is in the bank by the end of the year.”

ECFiber expects to break ground in late Spring of ’09 and begin connecting customers in October ’09. Nulty said that the pre-registration effort is going so well that it is starting to make economic sense to do customer connections at the same time the fiber is hung on the poles in towns with high pre-registration rates. Barnard currently leads the pack at 73%.

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ECFiber is a community-owned, subscriber-funded project to build a Fiber-to-the-Home network to provide phone, television, and ultra-high-speed internet services to 100% of the homes and businesses in 23 towns in East-Central Vermont. For more information, see www.ecfiber.net.