The 4th Utility Get £25m to Fund UK FTTP Broadband Rollout

Greater Manchester-based UK ISP The 4th Utility has today secured a £25 million investment boost from DIF Capital Partners, which will be used to support the next phase of their 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband roll-out to residential properties (mostly new build developments).

The provider first began building their new network last year (here) and have been working closely with major property developers, such as the Fortis Group, Crest Nicholson, Taylor Wimpe and David Wilson Homes (part of the Barratt Group) among others. As you might have already guessed, they tend to focus more on large apartment blocks (MDUs) and commercial properties.

At present the operator informs that they’ve already completed builds to cover 2,500 premises and the immediate plan is to complete their initial target of 10,000 by the end of 2020. Last year we were also informed that the ISP had a “pipeline of over 150,000 homes to deliver too in the next 5 years,” although they’ve now raised this target to 300,000 premises within the next 3 years (i.e. by around autumn 2023).

Connecting up large apartment blocks in urban and semi-urban areas tends to be noticeable cheaper than doing individual housing down streets (SDU). Due to this the new investment of £25m should be enough to take a big chunk out of that target (we’d guesstimate 100,000+ premises), but they’ll probably need more investment to hit 300,000.

Tony Hughes, CEO of 4^th Utility, said:

“The partnership with DIF Capital Partners is a significant milestone for our business and gives us a fantastic platform to deliver ultrafast internet access to many more properties across the UK.

The team at DIF share our desire to invest in high-quality fibre infrastructure and our ambition is to use this funding to become one of the leading broadband providers in the UK, ensuring thousands of new customers can benefit from full fibre connectivity.”

Willem Jansonius, Head of DIF Capital Partners, said:

“We are pleased to bring our experience in digital infrastructure to support 4th Utility and their management team in delivering FTTP infrastructure investment to underserved properties in the UK.”

As usual the 4th Utility won’t have this market all to themselves as Cityfibre, Openreach (BT), Virgin Media, Hyperoptic, CommunityFibre and others are all playing in the same water. But for the now there’s enough space for everybody to play in different areas.

Customers typically pay from £35.99 per month for a symmetric speed 100Mbps broadband package and this goes up to £57.99 if you want their top 300Mbps home tier. Contract terms and activation fees tend to vary between developments, with some getting this for a 30-day term (one-off activation costs the same as the monthly fee) and others 12-months (free activation). A 4-hour SLA fix time is also included.

A corporate finance team at Deloitte, comprising partner Darren Boocock and directors Nick Carr and Dan Marchington, provided financial advice to 4th Utility, and introduced the business to DIF Capital Partners.