CityFibre is the UK’s largest independent full-fibre infrastructure platform. The London-based company provides carrier-neutral digital infrastructure to its wholesale customers, enabling ultra-fast, reliable broadband, ethernet and 5G services to serve homes, businesses, schools, hospitals and GPs surgeries across the UK.
As the largest 100% full-fibre wholesale network in the UK, CityFibre is working with major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile operators such as TalkTalk, Three, Vodafone and Zen, as well as with a new generation of smaller, regional ISPs.
CityFibre’s rollout has continued to scale rapidly, now passing 1.7 million homes. It has networks in deployment across more than 60 major metro areas with over 3,200 operatives in the field. By 2025, the company wants to serve up to a third of the UK – that’s 8 million homes, 80,000 businesses, 400,000 local authority sites and 250,000 5G access points – across the 285 cities, towns and villages that will benefit from this nationwide rollout.
Looking to secure funding for its future rollout programme, CityFibre asked NatWest to advise and help arrange a suitable financing package. |
The NatWest infrastructure and project finance team worked closely with banks and lenders to agree and underwrite a £4.9 billion debt package, comprising committed facilities of £3.9 billion and an accordion facility of £1 billion. Also participating in the funding is the recently established UK Infrastructure Bank, which recognised CityFibre’s contribution to critical national infrastructure deployment and the Government’s levelling-up programme.
The debt facility, one of the largest single financings dedicated to full-fibre deployment across Europe, will also enable CityFibre to upweight its participation in Building Digital UK’s ‘Project Gigabit’ rural programme by extending its networks to rural areas surrounding the 285 cities, towns and villages identified in its existing rollout.
Nick Dunn, Chief Finance Officer of CityFibre, said: “With our rollout now fully financed, backed by so many esteemed financial institutions, we can now bring higher-quality, affordable infrastructure to even more households and businesses, unleashing the transformative economic potential of full-fibre to help level up the UK. NatWest were instrumental in delivering this transformative funding package for CityFibre”
Marcus Da Costa, Infrastructure Finance, NatWest, commented: “We’re delighted to have had the opportunity to help CityFibre secure the funding for the further rollout of their full-fibre network, that will connect more people and businesses across the UK.”
Jamie Doyle, Head of Infrastructure Finance, NatWest, commented: “This transaction not only demonstrates NatWest’s expertise in the growing fibre sector, but also delivers on our purpose to champion potential so that people, families and businesses can thrive – supporting businesses like CityFibre to create a fairer, greener and more inclusive society.”
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