Dutch pension investor APG is investing PLN1.37bn (€303m) to buy a 50% stake in a Polish fibre optic rollout joint venture with telecommunication provider Orange Polska.
The remaining 50% of the Światłowód Inwestycje joint venture will be financed with debt by partner Orange Polska.
The venture, which will become the largest independent wholesale fibre operator in Poland, will roll out a network reaching 1.7m additional households by 2025. Another 0.7m existing fibre optic connections will be brought into the joint venture by Orange Polska, bringing the total number of connections to 2.4m.
The latest deal is similar to a joint venture with Dutch firm KPN that APG’s main client ABP announced last month.
Dutch civil service scheme ABP said in a separate statement that the latest investment was made on its behalf. APG declined to say whether the investment was made exclusively on behalf of ABP.
“The investment in the Polish joint venture is somewhat lower than the Dutch investment because of the lower costs to roll out a fibre optic network in Poland,” an APG spokesperson said.
Julien Ducarroz, CEO of Orange Polska, said the investment, which is expected to be closed by the end of August, “will help cover the areas which still lack reliable internet access, without using public funds”.
Patrick Kanters, managing director of global real assets at APG, said the project “supports APG’s ambition to enable the digitalisation of the economy by providing high-speed fibre optic infrastructure to households that do not have high-quality internet access today”.
An APG spokesperson added the firm expects to add additional investments in the field of fibre optic infrastructure in the near future because of their “attractive return profile”.
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