A consortium of Macquarie Capital, abrdn and Arjun Infrastructure Partners are to acquire Spanish provider Digi Spain’s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network.
The network currently comprises approximately 4,250,000 homes passed with the rest of the network, covering up to 1,750,000 homes passed, to be deployed over an estimated period of three years. This would see the network reach a total of 6 million homes passed, covering 12 provinces across the regions of Madrid, Segovia, Avila, Castilla-La Mancha, Comunidad Valenciana and Murcia.
The network will be operated by independent wholesale provider Onivia, which is backed by Macquarie Capital,and will allow the consortium to increase its coverage to around 10 million Spanish homes, more than a third of homes in the country. The transaction will also provide the consortium with the option to acquire any future fibre rollouts from Digi in those provinces, subject to certain conditions.
Digi to remain as retail ISP
Digi will continue to use the FTTH network to serve its own customers and remain as anchor client, with the network made available to all other Onivia customers. Onivia’s position as a large-scale independent wholesale FTTH operator, with nationwide coverage has the additional aim of benefiting the country by increasing competition as it continues to deliver, from a neutral position, fibre broadband for large, growing and regional ISPs across Spain.
Jose Antonio Vázquez Blanco, Chief Executive Officer at Onivia, says: “With this acquisition, Onivia confirms its position as the largest neutral and independent player, enhancing the value-added proposal for our telco customers, increasing coverage, and offering the latest XGS-PON technology. It is also a fantastic step towards our national end-to-end telco proposal for other market segments such as utilities and alarms.”
Oliver Bradley, Senior Managing Director at Macquarie Capital says: “We established Onivia in 2019 as Spain's first independent wholesale fibre network operator. Alongside our long-term co-investors, Macquarie Capital are committed to supporting the continued growth and expansion of this truly national Spanish network, delivering reliable ultrafast broadband to both rural and urban areas and for ISPs large and small.”
Marius Varzaru, CEO at DIGI, says: “We are delighted to develop our expansion in Spain hand in hand with the consortium formed by Macquarie Capital, abrdn and Arjun Infrastructure Partners, world leaders in infrastructure investment.”
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. It also marks the latest consolidation move in Spain, following the creation of a joint venture between Spanish network operators Orange and MásMóvil, which was approved earlier this year, and is now operational under the name MasOrange.
