The Irish Infrastructure Fund is selling Speed Fibre to Cordiant Digital Infrastructure in a deal that gives the open-access fibre infrastructure provider a €190.5m enterprise value.

Cordiant Digital said the equity consideration of €97m for Speed Fibre will be funded by €68m in cash and €29m through a vendor loan note.

Speed Fibre, Ireland’s leading open-access fibre infrastructure provider, operates 5,400km of owned and leased fibre and wireless backhaul across the country.

The acquisition, expected to close later this year, further diversifies Cordiant Digital’s portfolio on a sub-sector and geographic basis. Once completed, Speed Fibre will be the fourth digital infrastructure platform acquired by Cordiant Digital since its launch in 2021.

Shonaid Jemmett-Page, chairman of Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, said: “As a fourth significant investment, Speed Fibre represents a further strategic milestone for the company.”

Jemmett-Page said Speed Fibre operates in a new market for Cordiant where data consumption growth is expected to be among the highest in Europe.

“This provides additional portfolio cash flow supported by high visibility revenues from wholesale contracts with global blue-chip customers and offers the potential to generate long-term value and attractive returns to shareholders.”

Steven Marshall, chairman of digital infrastructure at Cordiant Capital, said: “Speed Fibre is uniquely positioned as the leading independent national fibre and wireless backhaul operator and is poised to play an expanding role in Ireland’s digital economy.

“We expect to drive organic growth from existing customer traffic on its current network plus invest growth capex in new strategic fibre projects around Ireland and beyond.”

Benn Mikula, co-CEO and managing partner at Cordiant Capital, said: “Speed Fibre is a further step in the growth and diversification of the company’s portfolio. We are deploying capital into a key market in Western Europe’s evolving data economy.”

London-listed Cordiant Digital primarily invests in the core infrastructure of the digital economy - data centres, fibre-optic networks and telecommunication and broadcast towers in Europe and North America.

To read the latest edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here. 

Topics