Once again, the stock market is punishing a company for its ambitions. The latest example is GTT Communications, an upstart telecommunications and Internet provider that is taking business away from the telecom megaliths.

GTT has enjoyed rapid growth, thanks to aggressive salesmanship and superior technology against its more staid competitors, AT&T and Verizon. Key to its strategy is a relentless appetite for clever acquisitions. GTT began its M&A campaign in 2009, when annual revenue was south of $100 million. In 2017, revenue was $828 million, with some $1.5 billion expected for this year.

Up until recently, the stock has performed nicely, moving from less than $1 a share 10 years ago to a high of almost $62 in March. But things have been less exuberant since. What changed? In May, it finalized a large debt-financed acquisition, of a fiber and cloud player in Europe known as Interoute, for $2.3 billion.