Digi, the fourth telecommunications operator in Spain, announced this Friday an agreement with the investment fund Macquarie Capital (which has Abrdn and Arjun Infrastructure Partners among its shareholders) for the sale of a part of its fiber optic network to the home. (FTTH) in Spain for 750 million euros.
With this operation, Macquarie becomes the largest owner of hidden fiber in Spain. That is, the largest owner that transfers its infrastructure to operators. For Digi, the operation involves the sale of ownership of a total of 6 million fiber optic accesses, of which 4.25 million accesses are already deployed and will be delivered upon closing of the operation and the remaining 1.75 million of accesses will be deployed over an estimated period of three years. By the end of 2023, Digi had deployed its fiber network to 8.5 million homes.
Digi divests itself of ownership and makes cash, but will continue to be directly involved in this network and the company responsible for its maintenance on a global basis and with the decision-making capacity to offer any future technological advances on this network, such as the fastest service in the world 50 Gbps that the operator is testing and announced at the end of 2023.
The agreement covers its accesses located in 12 provinces in Spain: Madrid, Segovia, Ávila, Murcia and those that make up Castilla-La Mancha and the Valencian Community. At the same time, “it guarantees that the existing staff at Digi dedicated to this network will continue to be part of the operator in the long term, dedicated to the deployment and maintenance of infrastructure of this network and of Digi in general,” according to the statement issued.
“We are delighted to develop our expansion in Spain alongside the Consortium formed by Macquarie Capital, abrdn and Arjun Infrastructure Partners, global references in infrastructure investment, and we are confident that our excellent relationship will allow this network to continue to be, in the long run. term, the leading fiber network in Spain in speed and technological advancement. It is very important for us that, through this agreement, we demonstrate once again our commitment to employment, allowing us to maintain and strengthen the creation of our own jobs in the long term.”, assured the CEO of Digi, Marius Varzaru, in the statement issued this Friday.
The final closing of the operation is pending authorization from the Competition authorities and will be reviewed as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Spain as well as with the concentration operation control criterion by the European Commission.
For the company of Romanian origin, this operation helps it to make cash at a strategic moment. It has just received the compensation derived from the merger between Orange and MásMóvil, 60 Mhz of mobile spectrum for which it has to pay 120 million euros and to which is also added access under preferential conditions to the fiber networks of the new Masorange .
