Mubadala commits further £300m to CityFibre
March 22, 2022
CityFibre, the UK’s independent Full Fibre platform and carrier-neutral operator, has announced a further equity commitment of £300 million (€360m) from its existing shareholder, Mubadala Investment Company. This equity investment will support CityFibre’s accelerated growth plans and enable participation in Building Digital UK’s (BDUK) ‘Project Gigabit’ rural programme.
Under the infrastructure vertical of the UAE–UK Sovereign Investment Partnership, the new equity commitment builds on Mubadala’s initial £500 million investment into CityFibre as part of a wider financing in September 2021. The financing saw Mubadala and Interogo Holding join existing investors Antin Infrastructure Partners and the Infrastructure business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Combined, these investments now bring the total raised by CityFibre in the last six months to £1.42 billion, the largest ever financing for UK Full Fibre deployment.
CityFibre provides consumer and business Internet Service Provider (ISP) partners, service integrators and mobile operators access to world-class Full Fibre infrastructure. It is currently engaged in a £4 billion investment programme to roll-out dense Full Fibre infrastructure to up to 8 million homes by 2025. This rollout continues to accelerate with deployments underway across more than 60 major metro areas, spanning 285 cities, towns and villages. CityFibre is already the largest provider of Full Fibre in 26 cities and its rollout has now passed 1.5 million homes.
Greg Mesch, Chief Executive at CityFibre, said: “Mubadala’s confidence in our business is testament to our growing momentum and progress. The need and appetite for carrier-neutral wholesale network competition at scale is clear, and CityFibre continues to demonstrate the benefits as a driver of wider investment, improved services and better value. With Mubadala’s continued support, we are well funded to deliver the UK’s finest Full Fibre network and help to level-up the UK.”