Bellevue Company Lets Rival Buy Lanes

BELLEVUE, WA-Locally-based Laptop Lane Ltd. has sold nine of its high-speed access facilities at airports across the country, including one at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The terms of the sale were not disclosed, but Houston-based Wayport Inc. says it hopes to expand its airport footprint with the purchase of these locations.

Laptop Lane owner SoftNet Systems Inc. of San Francisco had been hunting for a buyer since the spring, just months after it purchased the company an its facilities at 13 airports for nearly $46 million.

Wayport, which provides similar services, says it will rename the Laptop Lane locations to match the rest of its properties. In addition to the single Sea-Tac location, Wayport is buying the three Laptop Lane locations at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport; two at Chicago O’Hare International Airport; one at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport; one at New York’s LaGuardia International Airport; and one at Salt Lake City International Airport.

“The Laptop Lane business centers we’ve chosen to acquire are in some of the world’s busiest airports. And, because they are in high traffic, convenient locations with a strong business model already in place, this is a perfect fit to our strategy,” Dave Vucina, CEO of Wayport said in a prepared statement. “By adding these new locations, with high-speed Internet connectivity and a full-service business center, Wayport provides unparalleled service to meet the needs of the business traveler.”