State regulators in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have given final approvals for today’s closing of a deal in which FairPoint Communications will acquire Verizon’s landline phone and Internet service in the three states for $2.3 billion.
Maine did so on Friday, while Vermont and New Hampshire’s utility commissions met in emergency session yesterday to consider news that some of the money FairPoint is borrowing to support the deal will carry a much higher interest rate than expected.
Regulators scolded the company for not telling them sooner as an interest rate estimated in January at 8.5 percent moved toward the eventual rate at the time of last week’s bond sale of 13.5 percent.
But in the end they ruled that the change would not have a big impact on the underlying deal.