Community Fibre Report UK Revenue Growth and Raise £125m, But Losses Surge
The latest annual accounts from network operator and broadband ISP CommunityFibre, which has deployed a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to 1.32 million UK premises (mostly in Greater London), reveals that their revenue grew by 109% to £41.7m at the end of 2023. But losses before tax surged to £134.6m (2022: £50.4m).
The provider, which is currently being backed by a finance facility of £985m, has had somewhat of a rough year due to the rising cost of build, strong market competition and high interest rates (a not uncommon challenge in the current market). This was reflected by their previous slowdown in network build and related redundancies during 2023 (here and here), which resulted in CF pivoting their strategy to focus on growing customer uptake.
The latest company accounts for CF (note: we found the text in this to sometimes be barely legible), which cover the year to the end of December 2023, similarly confirm that they expected to “reach a peak network size in excess of 1.3 million residential premises and 0.2 million business premises primarily within Greater London during the first half of 2024” (fibre coverage), which was largely achieved.
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The results add that the “group’s core business challenge is [now] to connect customers quickly enough, with low enough customer acquisition and connect costs and tightly controlled network maintenance and other overheads to ensure sufficient economic returns on its assets.” The good news is that CommunityFibre’s revenues and gross profit have surged, but those gains are still being overshadowed by a larger surge in losses.
Summary of Community Fibre’s 2023 Results
➤ Total committed debt facility of £685m, with £605m drawn
➤ Revenue grew by 109% to £41.7m (2022: £20m), due to customer growth
➤ Gross profit increased by 86% to £35.8m (2022: £17m)
➤ Total employees grew to 930 (2022: 788), although this doesn’t yet take account of the November 2023 redundancies (these won’t show up until their 2024 accounts)
➤ Total losses before tax grew to £134.6m (2022: £50.4m)
➤ Residential premises passed grew to 1,288,000 (2022: 780,000)
➤ Customers connected 222,000 (2022: 111,000), although the most recent figure from August 2024 puts them at 300,000 (here) and we think it may now be c.310,000.
➤ Total non-curent assets of £604m (2022: £432.9m)
➤ Total current assets of £35.9m (2022: £45.6m)
Despite the challenges, it’s worth noting that CF may not have completely given up on network expansion, and consolidation could be one option. Back in September 2024 we noted a report on Sky News, which claimed that the operator had made an offer worth around £300m to acquire rival altnet G.Network in London, but were rebuffed (here). Equally, CF could be a target for larger consolidators, such as nexfibre, CityFibre or possibly even Netomnia (Brsk).
The other bit of positive news today is that, according to a separate report in the Telegraph (paywall), CF has just managed to raise a further £125m in funding (debt raise) – taking their total to c.£1.1bn. This has come from a string of banks including JP Morgan, Barclays, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), Sequoia and Alpha Bank. But oddly, CF hasn’t yet put out an official press release about this.
Olaf Swantee, Chair of Community Fibre, said:
“The lenders and our shareholders share the view that Community Fibre’s momentum will further strengthen its position as the best and largest full fibre only provider in London and is a vote of confidence in its strong management team and their ability to commercialise the large London network.”
UPDATE 6:50am
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Added a bit of extra detail about CF’s new £125m debt raise. The company also announced it has been EBITDA positive since April 2024.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I wish they would finish their network build in our area. It’s been 12 months since they installed kit on the BT poles and sent out leaflets saying it was coming soon.
Poated on their website now:
https://communityfibre.co.uk/press/community-fibre-secures-additional-new-funding
I fear they have been caught out by building out to social housing areas first. A very noble aim, but as budgets have been squeezed they are the first sector of society likely to cut back their spending. CF were comparatively early in the London market and should have gone for businesses and more wealthy residential areas first. That would then have given them a former financial footing to expand further.
I work in the City of London and for a small business there are few options. No VM and BT barely does 40Mbps. The only choice is leased fibre from BT or others. The one altnet has similar pricing to BT leased.
vorboss do Small business internet for £350 / 10Gbps. I would say any business willing to pay for an office in the city of london could easily afford that, and it would be a wise investment.
@rubbish There are plenty of smaller businesses in the area – it’s not all financial firms in skyscrapers. They City of London is a large area with a variety of companies there.
IIRC the Vorboss £350/m deal is for 1Gbps. But it’s still a lot when in other areas a business would pay less than half that just by being outside the city walls.