Liberty Global Ventures teams with Infravia Capital Partners for German FTTH joint venture

Sept. 27, 2021

The 50:50 JV, the creation of which is subject to regulatory approval will warm up with a small number of under-served municipalities in Germany before expanding, assuming the JV meets its targets in its initial FTTH deployments.

Stephen Hardy

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Liberty Global Ventures, the investment arm of Europe-based cable MSO Liberty Global plc (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK), and private equity infrastructure and technology specialists InfraVia Capital Partners says they have created a joint venture (JV) targeting the fiber to the home (FTTH) market in Germany. The 50:50 JV, the creation of which is subject to regulatory approval will warm up with a small number of under-served municipalities in Germany before expanding, assuming the JV meets its targets in its initial FTTH deployments.

This would be Liberty Global’s second foray into the German FTTH market. The company operated Unitymedia, which passed 13 million homes and served 7.2 million broadband customers at the time Liberty sold the company to Vodafone in 2019.

“Liberty Networks Germany offers an exciting opportunity to leverage our expertise in deploying critical broadband infrastructure in a market we know very well,” commented Robert Dunn, managing director, connectivity investments at Liberty Global. “We’re also excited by the attractive returns offered by greenfield fiber network deployment in a country where millions of homes don’t yet have access to fast and reliable broadband. We look forward to working in partnership with InfraVia as we take a controlled approach to the opportunity as we move forward.”

“We are excited to be working with Liberty Global to explore this opportunity in Germany, seizing on the ever-increasing data usage and the acceleration of work from home patterns. We look forward to leveraging the investment capacity of our fifth infrastructure fund and our leading expertise in digital infrastructure investments during this project,” added Bruno Candès, a partner at InfraVia Capital Partners.

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About the Author

Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave

Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.

Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.

He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.

You can connect with Stephen on LinkedIn as well as Twitter.