Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, a UK-listed investment fund, has completed its acquisition of the wholesale fibre and business connectivity unit of BT Ireland in a deal worth €22 million.
BT Ireland Communications Ireland, the business acquired, has about 3,400km of managed fibre and services about 400 customers in the telecoms, enterprise and government sectors across Ireland.
The move follows Cordiant’s acquisition of Irish fibre networks companies Enet and Magnet Plus, together known as Speed Fibre Group, in late 2023. Speed Fibre Group is the Cordiant entity that is technically acquiring the BT unit.
The acquisition includes BT’s domestic network infrastructure, co-location facilities, wholesale and enterprise customer base, and the internal teams supporting them.
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These operations will now be integrated into Speed Fibre Group’s two brands: Enet, serving wholesale customers, and Magnet Plus, serving enterprise businesses. Integration of the two businesses began on Monday.
Speed Fibre said uniting the two businesses would create one platform that will support the data centre sector, next generation computing and artificial intelligence (AI) requirements.
Following the transaction, Speed Fibre Group’s network now extends to nearly 10,000km of fibre, connecting 94 towns and cities, and over 6,000 buildings including more than 2,500 in Dublin and key urban centres.
This strengthened footprint positions Enet as Ireland’s second-largest wholesale telecoms operator. The transaction also includes a long-term agreement for BT and Speed Fibre Group to source connectivity from each other.
The deal excludes BT Connectivity’s customer base of multinationals and financial institutions, while its 999 and 112 emergency call answering service, together with associated employees, have been separately carved out.
Some 300 of BT Ireland’s 650 workforce will remain in Ireland to serve multinational companies and large organisations, and offices in Dublin as well as regionally.
The transaction also includes a long-term agreement between BT and Speed Fibre Group to source connectivity for their respective customers from each other.
Speed Fibre Group chief executive Peter McCarthy said the deal “combines market heritage, knowledge and scale, and also restores badly needed competition in the telecommunications space at a national level”.
“By bringing together two leaders in the market, we will unlock greater scale, deeper building connectivity, and the ability to offer customers nationwide increased choice, better value, expanded reach and service excellence,” he said.
Steven Marshall, chairman of Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, said the deal marked a “transformational transaction” for the Irish telecoms market.
Bas Burger, chief executive of BT International, said: “We are delighted to conclude this successful transaction which represents the next step in our strategy to become a more agile and focused business.”
BT was advised on the transaction by Citi, PwC, and Simmons and Simmons. Cordiant and Speed Fibre Group were advised by McCann Fizgerald, PwC, and Matheson.
The deal has been cleared by the Irish the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
BT made an initial foray into the Republic in 1998 when it set up Ocean, a fixed-wire joint venture with ESB.
The London-based group acquired Denis O’Brien-founded Esat Telecom two years later. It subsequently bought ESB out of Ocean to settle a dispute with the State-owned electricity group over the Esat deal.
