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Full fibre network operator nexfibre has today issued a joint statement with shareholders InfraVia, Liberty Global (Virgin Media) and Telefónica (O2) to confirm that they do not plan to submit any remedies to the Competition and Markets Authority over their £2bn acquisition of Netomnia (Substantial Group). The move comes after the CMA found significant competition concerns.
Nexfibre, which is being backed by InfraVia Capital and shares some of their parentage with VMO2 (i.e. Liberty Global and Telefónica), had originally argued that the deal would have expanded the coverage of their network to 8m premises by the end of 2027 and unlocked a £3.5bn investment in the UK market – assisting in the upgrade of 2.1 million of Virgin Media’s premises from cable (Hybrid Fibre Coax) to full fibre (FTTP) broadband.
However, critics of the deal, such as CityFibre, which had also been attempting to acquire Netomnia before nexfibre tabled the most attractive offer, stated that there was a lot of overlap between the nexfibre / Virgin Media and Netomnia broadband networks. A recent Point Topic study put the overbuild figure at 832,000 premises when looking at the FTTP side of these networks (here), but there’s much more overbuild with HFC (see below).