A consortium backed by Macquarie Capital has purchased a 6 million home fibre network from DIGI Spain Telecom.
It means that Onivia, which is also funded by abrdn and Arjun Infrastructure Partners, will increase its footprint to around 10 million Spanish homes.
“With this acquisition, Onivia confirms its position as largest neutral and independent player, enhancing the value-added proposal for our telco customers, increasing coverage, and offering latest XGS-PON technology,” said Jose Antonio Vázquez Blanco, Chief Executive Officer of Onivia. “It is also a fantastic step towards our national end-to-end telco proposal for other market segments such as utilities and alarms.”
The network acquired 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 transaction also provides the consortium with the option to acquire any future fibre rollouts from DIGI in those provinces.
Oliver Bradley, Senior Managing Director at Macquarie Capital said: “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.”
DIGI, Spain’s fourth largest internet service provider (ISP), 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, increases competition in the market as it continues to deliver, from a neutral position, reliable, secure and fast broadband for large, growing and regional ISPs across Spain.
