CityFibre to get £300m investment from Abu Dhabi sovereign fund for broadband infrastructure rollout
One of the UAE’s biggest sovereign funds is set to plough a further £300m into the UK’s biggest fibre optic broadband company.
The Abu Dhabi government’s Mubadala investment fund, which controls $243bn (£184bn) worth of assets, will give London headquartered fibre optic company CityFibre an extra £300m, after investing £500m in the firm last September, Sky News said.
Mubadala’s investment will help accelerate CityFibre’s efforts to roll-out full-fibre broadband across the UK, particularly in rural areas through the UK government’s £5bn “Project Gigabit” scheme.
The £300m injection comes after CityFibre raised £1.125bn last September, in the largest British broadband company funding round ever.
Sources speaking to Sky News said the deal, which brings the total investment raised by CityFibre over the last six months to more than £1.4bn, reflects confidence in the broadband company’s strategy and management.
The capital raise saw Mubadala and Swiss fund Interogo join a consortium of investors, in financing CityFibre’s plans to roll out ultra-fast broadband to a third of the UK market by 2025.
By 2025, CityFibre is set to have built out sufficient broadband infrastructure to supply 8m homes, 400,000 public sector sites, and 800,000 businesses. The firm has already rolled out its services to 1.5m British customers.
CityFibre is also planning to build out 250,000 5G access points, and has struck deals with major internet providers, including TalkTalk and Vodafone, to allow them to sell their services using its infrastructure.
Having been created through the merger of two major Emirati funds in 2017, the Mubadala Investment Company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi government.
The multi-billion-dollar investment fund has six offices across the globe and has a portfolio of investments spanning more than 50 different countries.