CityFibre has acquired Connexin’s full fibre infrastructure, establishing a material foothold across Hull and East Riding and enabling the expansion of CityFibre’s footprint by up to 185,000 premises.
The strategic agreement will see Connexin’s shareholder, PATRIZIA’s European Infrastructure Fund II, become a minority shareholder in CityFibre.
The acquisition includes Connexin’s built network assets which currently pass more than 80,000 premises, as well as work in progress to a further 20,000 premises and options to extend further throughout Hull over time.
CityFibre will also take on Connexin’s Project Gigabit contract to rollout gigabit-capable broadband to over 34,000 hard-to-reach premises in Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire, and this will become the tenth Project Gigabit delivery contract secured by CityFibre and will unlock a future expansion to over 50,000 non-subsidised premises in the target regions.
CityFibre will begin integrating Connexin’s XGS-PON network to bring CityFibre’s wholesale products, pricing and services across the footprint, with integration expected to complete later this year, further extending its nationwide network which already passes more than 4.4m premises.
The acquisition underscores CityFibre’s commitment to actively engaging in market consolidation as part of its nationwide rollout to more than 8 million premises.
It follows CityFibre’s successful acquisition of Lit Fibre in May 2024.
Connexin will now expand nationwide, across CityFibre’s network, and build on its success in Internet of Things (IoT), including rolling out LoRaWAN (long range wide-area) networks and winning contracts for over 2 million smart water meters.
Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, (pictured) said: “Our mature wholesale model will now bring Hull’s homes and businesses increased choice and access to connectivity products, services and prices.
“After our rapid integration of Lit Fibre’s network, we have demonstrated that this is an effective way to expand our footprint and we look forward to playing an active role in the sector’s accelerating consolidation in 2025.
CityFibre is owned by Antin Infrastructure Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Mubadala Investment Company and Interogo Holding. The network is also supported by UK ISPs such as Vodafone, TalkTalk, and Zen Internet.
Image shows: Greg Mesch, CEO, CityFibre