Rural ISP Gigaclear Signs £525m Long-Term Funding Strategy

Rural UK full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP Gigaclear, which since last year has been working with their investment partner Infracapital to develop a “long-term funding strategy” (including an assessment of further debt funding), has today confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that they’ve secured £525m in financing.

The provider is currently still in the recovery phase after many of their projects’ suffered significant deployment delays during 2018-2019, which followed various problems with resources, planning and management. The situation also resulted in the loss of a significant 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) roll-out contract across Devon and Somerset (here).

However, since early last year, a lot of work has gone toward putting the operator back on the right track and steady progress is now being made. As part of that the operator’s CFO, Ian Wade, has been busy behind the scenes developing a new long-term funding strategy and the fruits of that are now coming to light.

As we understand it Gigaclear has secured £525m in financing from Lloyds, Natwest, Santander and ABN Amro. The package consists of a £480m seven-year capital expenditure facility and a £45m revolving credit facility.

Gareth Williams, CEO of Gigaclear, said:

“We are really pleased to have concluded the debt funding as outlined in last year’s annual report. We would like to thank our shareholders for their continual support, and to welcome the Banks, as they provide the funding for the next stage of our exciting story. The funding will be invested in the expansion of our network.”

We should point out that the ISP hasn’t put out a huge announcement about this development, which would normally attract a lot more publicity. The operator felt as if, given the current COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis, a bigger announcement at this time might not have been appropriate.

Nevertheless this is a significant development for the provider and one that should help to secure their future roll-out plans. We hope to get more details once things start getting back to normal around the UK.