Spanish infrastructure investment manager Asterion Industrial Partners has taken control of National Broadband Ireland (NBI).
Asteron has acquired the stakes held in NBI from Oak Hill Advisors (49%), Twin Point Capital (25%) and other minority shareholders. The transaction will be subject to ministerial approval.
Ownership of the remaining 20% of shares will be unchanged, with Granahan McCourt, the investment vehicle of NBI chair David McCourt's Granahan McCourt Capital and long-time business partner Walter Scott's Tetrad Corporation, staying on board.
Under the National Broadband Plan, NBI has been tasked with providing high-speed broadband to 559,000 premises in rural Ireland and hard to reach areas as well as any new homes built in the intervention area over the next 25 years.
In line with the NBP contract, the deployment plan is a 7-year build programme which is due to be completed by the end of 2026. The maximum cost of the NBP to Irish taxpayers under the NBP contract is €2.7 billion over 25 years. This includes €480m for contingency costs.
In Association with
As of 8 July 2022:
- 11,000km of fibre cable has been installed by NBI
- 314,000 premises with fibre designs completed
- 39,000 poles upgraded by Openeir or added by NBI
- 200,000 premises have had pole and duct upgrades completed or are taking place
- 64,000 premises have been passed by the NBI network
- Over 70,000 premises available for pre-order /order across 23 counties.
Granahan McCourt said it remains "fully committed" to NBI, and Asterion is "aligned, committed, and impressed" by its NBI's Irish management team, including CEO of infrastructure Peter Hendrick and CEO of deployment TJ Malone, who will remain in place.
"In Asterion, we welcome a hugely respected partner with decades of experience in telecoms infrastructure that will not only help us deliver on this extremely ambitious project but also bring long term commitment to Ireland, which has always been our stated aim," said David McCourt.
Winnie Wutte, founding partner of Asterion, said: "We are delighted to partner with Granahan McCourt and continue to invest in the development of rural fibre infrastructure with NBI, in one of the most ambitious fibre rollouts in the world.
“We are also excited and committed to the opportunity of creating a centre of excellence in Ireland in partnership with Granahan McCourt to open up tremendous long-term opportunities in the Irish market and further cement its leadership position in the provision of a gigabit society.”
Musa Sönmez, co-head of Europe and partner at Oak Hill Advisors, stated: “We are very confident that NBI will continue to go from strength-to-strength and deliver this transformational infrastructure for the people of Ireland."
NBI's partners on the project include Nokia, which is providing active equipment; network design partners, 4Site, Actavo and Entegrol; and build partners Actavo, KN Group, Secto, TLI and Gaeltec.
Infrastructure owners Eir (pole and ducts networks) and Enet (state-owned manual access networks) are also collaborating.
Progress on the National Broadband Plan as of 8 July 2022 is available from a government statatment here.
