CityFibre UK Raise GBP16.5m as it Floats onto the London Stock Exchange

CityFibre, which builds and manages true ultra-fast fibre optic (FTTH/P) networks in several large towns and cities around the United Kingdom, has raised approximately £16.5m this morning after confirming their admission to and trading of its Ordinary Shares on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

Admission to the international market for smaller growing companies should help CityFibre to raise additional funding in order to expand the roll-out of its fibre optic infrastructure to more locations around the country. Indeed at the end of last year they expressed a firm desire to achieve a total market value of £50 million (here), which could also be used on “the acquisition of existing fibre infrastructure” (CityFibre might soon seek to gobble some of their rivals).

So far the strategy appears to be working and the total number of Ordinary Shares in issue at admission is 52,314,648 (i.e. a market capitalisation of approximately £31.4 million at the Issue Price), which is still someway short of £50m but it’s a start.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“We are delighted to be listing on AIM at such an exciting period in the Company’s development. The IPO will enable CityFibre to accelerate its growth ambitions and continue to capitalise on a number of exciting opportunities.

Our development pipeline is already under way for 2014 in which we plan to bring further Gigabit cities online whilst continuing to invest in our established UK footprint. The need for pure fibre connectivity continues to drive our business and we look forward to updating both the market and our shareholders on our strategic progress over the coming months.”

CityFibre already has a number of networks, such as its public sector and business focused setup in York and their more historically controversial consumer FTTH deployment in Bournemouth that has yet to see much success.

But the group recently reached a £30m deal to roll-out an independent metro fibre optic and telecoms network around the city of Peterborough in the East of England (here) and has long held ambitions towards a more significant expansion, which could also involve connecting residential premises.

However, targeting the domestic market has traditionally not been an easy task for operators that don’t share BT or Virgin Media’s infrastructure in urban areas, which means that CityFibre generally tends to focus on public sector connectivity and businesses. Last year the operator also signed a new strategic ISP partnership with ASK4 (here).