S&C represented West Street Infrastructure Partners, as a member of a consortium with Antin Infrastructure Partners, in its £537.8 million acquisition of CityFibre Infrastructure Holdings plc, a leading independent provider of wholesale fiber infrastructure in the U.K.
The investment by West Street Infrastructure Partners and Antin provides CityFibre with the long-term capital needed for expansion. “Under private ownership, CityFibre will be able to gain alternative and potentially easier access to the financing required for its announced FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) deployment,” CityFibre’s chairman Chris Stone said. “This will strengthen the company’s ability to deliver on its vision to provide full fiber infrastructure to 20% of the U.K. market,” he added.
Commenting on the acquisition, Philippe Camu, Global Head of West Street Infrastructure Partners, said: “CityFibre is an exciting and innovative communications infrastructure company and we strongly support its vision to expand fiber-based broadband networks across the U.K. CityFibre can play a significant role in developing the U.K.’s digital economy and together with Antin we look forward to supporting the company in fulfilling that objective.”
According to industry press, CityFibre is building its own fiber optic broadband network in the U.K., taking on national provider BT Group in select towns and cities. CityFibre signed a partnership in 2017 with Vodafone that will see the mobile company market CityFibre’s ultra fast broadband networks in around 12 U.K. towns and cities.
The S&C team on the transaction was led by Rob Schlein, Ben Perry and Timothy Emmerson, along with Silvia Pacheco and Anna Hagan.