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Abingdon-based alternative network Gigaclear, which have built a full fibre (FTTP) network across 618,000 premises in rural parts of England and is home to 170,000 customers, has published their annual accounts after lenders recently took control of the business (here). The results reveal that their c.£963m senior debt facility was revised to a principal amount of £575m (shrinking by £388m).
In case anybody has forgotten. Gigaclear was previously owned by Infracapital, together with Equitix and Railpen. The company had investment commitments estimated to be worth up to around £1.1bn (here) and in late 2023 secured a £1.5bn debt facility (here). At the end of 2025 a consortium of the provider’s existing banks then agreed to pump “at least” £80m of new funding into the company (here).
However, in April 2026, everything changed after the provider’s lenders took control of the business. At that point ownership of the company transferred to a consortium of ABN AMRO, Natwest and the UK taxpayer-backed National Wealth Fund (NWF), which involved a “substantial deleveraging and reduces the debt service requirement” (the lenders took a significant haircut on the company’s debt pile).
The company’s shares were then transferred to Buzz Holdco Limited, which is owned by the same consortium of institutional investors. Gigaclear’s latest results to the end of 2025 now show that their c.£963m senior debt facility was amended and restated, as part of the aforementioned change, to reflect a revised principal amount of £575m (a shrinkage of £388m).
The outcome came after Gigaclear had been suffering from many of the same strains as other alternative networks (altnets). In response, they’d already had to scale-back their network builds and cut jobs, due to the pressures from high interest rates, rising build costs and a highly competitive environment (here and here); nobody ever said building fibre optic cables into remote rural areas was either easy or cheap.
Gigaclear’s Results to the End of 2025 (Key Figures)
➤ Averaged total number of staff 654 (2024: 779)
➤ Revenue up 37% to £64.9m (2024: £47.2m)
➤ Loss for the year (exc. fair value change of interest rate swaps) was £152m (2024: £242.6m). The reduction was primarily due to no impairment of property, plant and equipment in 2025
➤ Net debt of £997.9m (2024: £870.2m) – mostly due to network expansion
➤ Premises passed (Ready for Service) of 618,000 (2024: 588,000)
➤ Live customers of 165,000 (2024: 134,000)