Alternative Broadband ISP Glide Gobble Full Fibre Builder CSP

Business and residential UK ISP Glide Group, which has built a national “full fibre” broadband network that reaches over 100,000 premises, has acquired Concept Solutions People (CSP) for an undisclosed sum. CSP designs and builds bespoke fibre networks for councils, data centres, ISPs, and universities.

Apparently CSP has already built over 100 kilometres of owned duct network in 27 locations and today’s agreement means that CSP will now be renamed Glide Fibre. The new division will then be joined to the Glide core network, enabling more opportunities to provide Glide Gigabit services to suit any business requirement nationwide.

The move follows last year’s acquisition of the Glide Group by American infrastructure investment firm Alinda Capital Partners (ACP) in June 2020, which is reportedly said to have paid around £200m to acquire the business. We should point out that Glide also has operations in Ireland, Italy and Spain.

Steve Ives, Founder of CSP, said:

“We share the vision that Glide has to build high quality, high-capacity networks across the UK. For the past ten years our team have been building these networks and we are pleased to be part of Glide to build even more network.”

Tim Pilcher, CEO of Glide Group, said:

“When we met Dave and Steve we knew that we had found the right partners to help us grow and expand our network further and faster than we could on our own. The team has a wealth of experience and knowledge that is invaluable to our ambitions to build fibre in difficult to serve and hard to reach areas. Our investors, Alinda Capital Partners who purchased Glide in 2020, invest in asset-rich infrastructure that will provide a lasting return for the next 20-30 years and this acquisition suited those criteria well.”

Glide was advised on the transaction by Grant Thornton and Addleshaw Goddard and CSP advisors were Clarion and Parsons.