Hyperoptic switches private equity owners

UK independent fibre provider Hyperoptic has had the majority of its ownership switched from lot of investment companies to another.

The new lot in control of the company is HKK, an investment company that seems to get involved in every industry in every part of the world. It acquired its stake in Hyperoptic from fellow investment companies Newlight and Mubadala. The terms of the deal weren’t revealed so we don’t know exactly how much of Hyperoptic owns or how much it cost, but this does seem to be the first time is has had a single majority owner for a while.

“We are incredibly grateful to Newlight and Mubadala for their unwavering support and significant contributions to the success of Hyperoptic,” said Hyperoptic CEO Dana Tobak, who will remain in place. “Currently, only 8% of the UK has access to full fibre and less than half of that to symmetrical gigabit services.

“We are confident that with the support of KKR and their significant expertise enabling high-growth businesses, our ambitious infrastructure plans to build our hyperfast network out to two million homes by 2021 and five million by 2024 will be realised.”

“Hyperoptic has a market-leading position and superior consumer product,” said two people from KKR in unison, apparently doing some kind of duet. “The business is strongly positioned to meet the growing demand for full-fibre services in the UK through further investment and national roll-out, supporting housing development and renovation. Our investment in Hyperoptic builds on KKR’s strong track record in telecommunications infrastructure in Europe, investing in and deploying next-generation digital connectivity.”

Meanwhile fellow UK fibre indie CityFibre has started an industry consultation on the role of such companies in the overall switch from copper to fibre. The move has apparently been prompted by the progress of CityFibre’s rollout in Stirling, which is set to switch to fibre-inly next year. There needs to be some kind of consensus about how best to support legacy services when the switch happens, the establishment of which seems to be the main point of this consultation.

“Only by collaborating as an industry, with the full support of government and Ofcom, will we be able to switch-over the UK from legacy copper networks to a future-proof full fibre platform,” said Greg Mesch, CityFibre CEO. “Our consultation will ensure that we play our part in this switch-over and that the eventual retirement of the copper networks is managed in a way that promotes sustained infrastructure investment from a range of organisations.

“With rollouts underway to reach over 20% of the UK market, our city-wide full fibre networks like that in Stirling will soon be of sufficient coverage to play their part, enabling a copper to fibre switch-over for the benefit of Communication Providers and their customers. Through our consultation, we look forward to engaging with the whole industry, including Openreach and BT Retail, to help develop a national plan to efficiently and smoothly upgrade Britain.”

With such a healthy independent infrastructure sector in the UK it seems clear some kind of best practice consensus is called for and it’s good to see someone try to get the ball rolling on that. Mesch will be speaking live at the Telecoms.com LIVE event in London on 7 November and this topic seems likely to come up. If you want to attend just click here to register.