Following the sale of cable operator Unitymedia to Vodafone two years ago, Liberty Global is set to return to the German market.
Liberty Global Ventures, the investment arm of Liberty Global, and InfraVia Capital Partners, an independent private equity firm specialised in infrastructure and technology investments, have set up a new joint venture aimed at assessing the opportunity in building fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks in Germany.
The 50:50 joint venture, which is subject to regulatory approval, sees the two companies leverage their expertise in infrastructure investment and development. The company will take a modular approach, with the first phase targeting a small number of municipalities in Germany. If specifically defined success criteria are met during the first phase, it will open up further investment opportunities for the joint venture.
“Liberty Networks Germany offers an exciting opportunity to leverage our expertise in deploying critical broadband infrastructure in a market we know very well. We’re also excited by the attractive returns offered by greenfield fibre network deployment in a country where millions of homes don’t yet have access to fast and reliable broadband. We look forward to working in partnership with InfraVia as we take a controlled approach to the opportunity as we move forward,” said Robert Dunn, Managing Director, Connectivity Investments, Liberty Global.
Bruno Candès, Partner, InfraVia Capital Partners, added: “We are excited to be working with Liberty Global to explore this opportunity in Germany, seizing on the ever-increasing data usage and the acceleration of work from home patterns. We look forward to leveraging the investment capacity of our fifth infrastructure fund and our leading expertise in digital infrastructure investments during this project.”
Having operated Unitymedia for a decade, Liberty Global brings extensive experience of the German market to the joint venture. This includes working closely with municipalities and regional authorities in Germany as Unitymedia expanded its network in the country, which reached 13 million homes passed and 7.2 million customers by the time of its sale to Vodafone in 2019.
