BT Sells Irish Wholesale and Business Unit to Speed Fibre Group
The UK telecoms giant, BT Group, has today continued to reduce their international operations by announcing the acquisition of their Irish wholesale and enterprise business unit – ‘BT Communications Ireland Ltd.‘ (BTCIL) – by the Speed Fibre Group, which describes itself as being an open access fibre infrastructure provider (managing or owning 5,400km of fibre).
The transaction, which is currently still subject to customary conditions including competition approval and is expected to complete in 2025, includes BT’s domestic network infrastructure, over 400 customers, and associated teams supporting wholesale and business enterprises. But it does not include BTCIL’s customer base of multinationals, large Irish organisations, the Emergency Call Answering Service, associated employees, and the recently divested data centre business (subject to regulatory approval).
The deal also comprises a long-term agreement for BT and Speed Fibre Group to source connectivity for their respective customers from each other, which supports BT’s desire to “retain a strong presence in the Irish market to deliver connectivity, cloud and security services to multinationals and large organisations“.
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Post-transaction, BT still expects to maintain over 400 employees in Ireland, with offices in Dublin and regionally, and connections to BT’s global network infrastructure and propositions.
Peter McCarthy, CEO of Speed Fibre Group, said:
“We are thrilled to announce that BT Communications Ireland, which includes wholesale and enterprise connectivity customers, will become part of Speed Fibre Group, marking an exciting milestone in our shared journey. This acquisition enables us to deliver even greater value to our customers by expanding our range of connectivity solutions. It’s a positive development for the Irish market, providing us with the scale and capabilities to better serve our growing customer base.”
Bas Burger, CEO of BT Business, said:
“Today’s announcement is another key milestone in focusing our international business on what it does best: providing secure multi-cloud connectivity to large organisations globally and in Ireland. Our Irish wholesale and enterprise business unit, which has been a leading alternative provider for more than 30 years, will enter a new era with Speed Fibre Group. We are confident that Speed Fibre Group will continue to deliver exceptional service to customers, and we look forward to working together with them as our future partner in Ireland.
BT was advised on the transaction by Citi, PWC, and Simmons & Simmons. Cordiant Digital Infrastructure Limited, which owns the Speed Fibre Group, were advised by McCann Fizgerald, PwC, and Matheson.
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.
Guessing this is the effect of Sky moving away from BTI Wholesale and choosing to work with altnets and Eir in Ireland themselves
Sky were paying a pretty penny for BTI services in the past but always considered the customer base to be to low to install their own kit.
More of the British disease – sell off!
Or alternatively just a refocus on their core business…
For what it’s worth, BTCIL used to be an Irish-owned telco called Esat (founded in 1990) which BT bought in 2000 – so BT Group are hardly selling off their GPO inheritance here!
It’s interesting to see BT offloading parts of their business. I wonder how this will affect their services in Ireland?