Digital infrastructure investment

New Bondholder, CityFibre, the UK’s third national digital infrastructure platform, has completed its acquisition of FibreNation from TalkTalk Group, following shareholder approval.

Continuing its long-term strategy of investing in critical national infrastructure, the acquisition of the full fibre network builder also enables CityFibre to increase its roll-out ambition from 5 million to up to 8 million premises, supporting an investment programme of up to £4 billion, as well as helping to accelerate the availability of full fibre across the UK, a platform critical to social and economic recovery in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Moreover, the completion also triggers TalkTalk’s onboarding as CityFibre’s latest major customer, making long-term commitments to both residential and business customers.

To date, CityFibre has identified 62 towns and cities to benefit from its rollout and CityFibre has connected thousands of public sector sites including hospitals, GPs, schools and community venues.

Its increased rollout plan to reach up to 8 million premises is expected to span more than 100 towns and cities, and is estimated to create up to 7,000 construction jobs outside London.

TalkTalk Group will now begin a process of systems integration as part of long-term commitments across CityFibre’s existing and future network rollout, ensuring its customers can benefit from faster, more reliable connectivity at competitive prices.

Greg Mesch, Chief Executive at CityFibre, said: “In the face of the rapid spread of the Coronavirus and its unprecedented impact on the UK’s society and economy, we believe that the need for world-class digital infrastructure has never been greater.

“Completing our acquisition of FibreNation marks an acceleration in our ability to deploy the critical future-proof digital infrastructure our country needs. By significantly expanding our rollout ambition to up to 8 million premises, CityFibre is helping to answer the call for a full fibre Britain.

“With TalkTalk now joining our networks to offer full fibre services to their residential and business customers, we look forward to working with our new FibreNation colleagues to maximise the benefit of our rollouts.”