Our strengthened presence in the digital “fibre” infrastructure sector

Over the last year, Meridiam significantly accelerated the pace of its developments in the digital “fibre” infrastructure sector, with capital deployed of over €1.7 billion.

Last August, we partnered with Magenta Telekom, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG, to extensively deploy fibre throughout Austria. Through this project, both partners plan to invest more than €1 billion to roll out a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network to over 650,000 homes in Austria, mostly in underserved rural areas and medium-sized towns. In Austria again, in addition to the Magenta project, we partnered in late 2021 with the regional public body of Styria’s Liezen district to invest more than €150 million to connect up to 60,000 households to high-speed internet.

And in Romania, we were also selected to invest €120 million to accelerate the development of fibre duct networks across the capital city Bucharest (Netcity project).

Beyond Europe, we are actively building ubiquitous and state-of-the-art fibre networks in North America where we recently started construction on the A-Net project in Alberta, Canada. This will extend FTTH to 40,000 homes across the Edmonton region.

In addition, we are developing the H-Net project in Indiana, where we will deploy fibre to over 70,000 homes and businesses until 2024. The H-Net project includes a programmatic approach to digital equity, literacy and community engagement. Residents will be offered multiple plans to choose from at various prices and internet speeds that fit their respective needs. This includes an affordable solution designed for residents who qualify for the Federal Communication Commissions’ Affordable Connectivity Program (“ACP”). In North America, we have also reached financial close for Alberta Broadband Networks project (“A-Net”) that will bring fibre connectivity to over 41,000 premises in the greater Edmonton region. As part of a C$219 million total investment, we secured one of the first non-recourse project finance facilities for a revenue-risk, greenfield fibre development in North America, further demonstrating our differentiated approach and innovation in delivering essential infrastructure projects.

Our fibre strategy was initiated in 2020 in Germany where we are targeting over 500,000 homes passed. We have already started there the roll-out of high-speed fibre to over 120,000 rural households with a corresponding investment of more than €200 million.

Source:

Image rights @iStock