UK fiber firm CityFibre has confirmed the completion of its acquisition of Lit Fibre from Newlight Partners.
First announced two months ago, the deal will expand CityFibre's nationwide full fiber rollout by around 300,000 premises. The alt-net (alternative network) is aiming to roll out fiber to eight million UK homes with its full fiber broadband by the end of next year.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, although CityFibre confirmed it was a share-based acquisition and one that sees Newlight Partners join as minority shareholders.
“We’ve already been working hard with the great team at Lit to ensure that its network is integrated quickly as our partners are excited to begin marketing over the new footprint," said Greg Mesch, CEO, CityFibre.
"This is a great opportunity for us to hone our integration capabilities as acquisition becomes an increasing accelerant to our eight million plan.”
Lit Fibre serves more than 200,000 homes across counties including Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Worcestershire, Essex, and Suffolk, and serves a subscriber base of approximately 10,000 retail customers.
CityFibre said it's the first of several deals it expects to close over the next two years, as the company pursues acquisitions of other alt-net providers, to compete against Openreach and Virgin Media.
The company noted that it plans to complete Lit's work-in-progress deployment, plus the majority of its planned network rollouts.
Lit Fibre is on track to reach up to 300,000 premises by early next year. The company's network is built exclusively using existing poles and ducts and benefits from a highly attractive build cost per premises.
CityFibre has previously acquired other altnets, notably that of FibreNation's network from TalkTalk for £206m ($261m) back in 2020. That particular deal saw CityFibre increase its targeted rollout from five million premises to the current target of eight million premises.
Other acquisitions include Entanet back in 2017 for £29m ($36m), plus the acquisition of national network assets KCOM and Redcentric.
Separately, CityFibre has also been the subject of interest from a proposed takeover by Virgin Media O2 last year, with the latter valuing the company at around £3 billion ($3.81bn).
