Shareholders delay sale of telephone company

WINTHROP – Shareholders of a local telephone company have delayed a vote and will decide July 9 whether to accept an offer to sell the business as part of a $31.2 million transaction.

FairPoint Communications of North Carolina in April offered to buy Community Service Communications Inc. of Winthrop. The offered price includes paying off about $15.5 million in debt. The shareholders’ vote had been scheduled for Wednesday.

The purchase would include subsidiary CommTel, a 105-year-old telephone company with 12,500 local access lines and service in Kennebec and Androscoggin counties. It would also include the CommTel building in downtown Winthrop, all trucks and equipment, and the communications infrastructure of poles, wires and switches, and other assets.

Community Service Communication Inc.’s 600,700 shares of stock are owned by about 275 shareholders, 25 of whom attended the Wednesday meeting.

With five telephone companies in Maine, from Fort Kent to Bridgton to Standish, FairPoint is the second largest telephone company in Maine, but is a distant second to Verizon. FairPoint already owns two companies in the area, Sidney Telephone Co. and China Telephone Co.

Over the past five years, larger communications companies have bought many of Maine’s small independent telephone companies in a wave of consolidation. In March, Country Road Communications of Morristown, N.J., announced plans to buy Community Service for $28.5 million.

FairPoint, which wants to add telephone lines and broadband Internet in Maine, sweetened the purchase price to $31.2 million the following month.

Besides the shareholder endorsement, the deal also requires approvals from the Maine Public Utilities Commission and the FCC. The necessary paperwork is expected to be filed at the PUC shortly. Once filed, approval time is 60 days but the commission can extend it to 120 days for review.