CityFibre build UK broadband network to 4.8m premises and prep £900m for consolidation UPDATE
The UK’s largest alternative 10Gbps capable Full Fibre (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network, CityFibre, has today revealed that their network now covers 4.8 million UK premises (4.6m RFS) and revenues grew to £164m (up 36% from £120m last year). But shareholders have also prepared £900m in a “new equity commitment” to help drive future altnet consolidation.
The details were released as part of a new trading update to 30th September 2026, which also revealed that customer connections had grown to total 1.108 million (up 52%) and consumer revenues had surged by 61% to total £127m (up from £79m). Part of that no doubt reflects the impact of securing Sky Broadband as a major retail ISP partner.
The figures mean that consumer penetration on their wholesale broadband network now exceeds 26%, which continues to trend in the right direction. Adjusted EBITDA (i.e. earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) also quadrupled to £60m, as “customer growth, operating leverage and continued cost discipline drove improved profitability“. This reflects annualised run rates of over £220m p.a. revenue and £100m p.a. EBITDA.
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City Fibres’ Financial Highlights to Sept 2026
| Financial highlights | Nine months to 30 Sept 2026 | Nine months to 30 Sept 2025 | Change YoY |
| Revenue | £164m | £120m | 36% |
| Consumer revenue | £127m | £79m | 61% |
| Adjusted EBITDA | £60m | £15m | 290% |
| Customer connections | 260k | 210k | 23% |
| Customer connections (cumulative) | 1,108k | 729k | 52% |
| Premises passed | 4.8m | 4.7m | 2% |
| Premises RFS | 4.6m | 4.3m | 7% |
Naturally CityFibre’s update has been somewhat sanitised by focusing on only the positives, albeit with no mention of their latest debts and losses. Suffice to say that we’re missing half of the content, but that should be made available shortly, once their full accounts become available via Companies House.
Simon Holden, CEO of CityFibre, said:
“Our performance demonstrates the ongoing, fundamental strength of CityFibre’s business. We continue to grow our customer base and revenues while delivering significant improvements in profitability and maintaining a disciplined approach to costs and capital allocation.
We also recognise that our capital structure needs to evolve to support our acquisition drive and unlock the next phase of CityFibre’s growth. With the continued backing of our shareholders, including a £900m new equity commitment, we are in discussion with our lenders to establish a strong, long-term capital structure for the business.
This will enable CityFibre to accelerate consolidation in the sector creating a larger business with the funding and financial flexibility to deliver its long-term plan and establish the third national network the UK needs.”
CityFibre have of course made no secret of their desire to drive consolidation among struggling alternative broadband networks (altnets), although that plan hit somewhat of a bump earlier this year after nexfibre (Virgin Media / O2) beat their bid for Netomnia. But the CMA’s provisional decision last week to effectively block that deal could re-open this option in the near future (nexfibre might yet find a remedy to this, but it would be difficult).
The network operator are also known to have held discussions with a number of altnets and thus the extra funding could give them the money to do deals with operators like CommunityFibre, Hyperoptic, G.Network, Gigaclear or potentially several smaller altnets. As usual, CityFibre are likely to be sensitive to overbuild and will want to pick players that don’t compete too directly with their existing infrastructure.
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However, consolidating alternative networks still tends to be a slow, complex and costly process – particularly with many altnets still holding an inflated idea of their own asset values. On the other hand, recent strains in the wider market do seem to be slowly bringing a much needed does of realism into the sector, which could help to move things along.
Still, CityFibre’s strategy around all this remains unproven, but more scale is ultimately what’s needed to help grow a true national competitor to the two established giants of Openreach and Virgin Media (inc. nexfibre). Lest we forget that CityFibre has long also aspired for their full fibre network to reach 8 million premises in the future (originally this was a 2025 target), although quite when they’ll achieve that now depends on their M&A drive.
UPDATE 7th Oct 2026 @ 6:58am
Companies House has now published CityFibre’s full accounts, which reveals that their network operating costs increased by £12m to total £50m (2024: £38m) as the network scaled and their loss after tax increased to £397m (2024: £378m), primarily due to higher interest charges on inter-company loans. Finally, total liabilities now stand at £6.06bn (2024: £5.12bn).
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Curiously the accounts for CityFibre Limited don’t include any figures for their employees and the group’s ultimate parent company, Connect Infrastructure Topco Ltd, as well as CityFibre Infrastructure Holdings Ltd, are currently late with their annual accounts. As such we don’t yet know the exact figure after all of their recent redundancies.
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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The strategy team at CityFibre have been abysmal at closing any meaningful M&A. They are notoriously bad at negotiation and deal execution. Coupled with the fact the COO has hollowed out the operational teams in the latest in a long line of constant re-orgs, the future does not bode well for CityFibre.
Agreed. All these year harping on about consolidation and they’ve done next to nothing. Only when others want the same asset do they commit to closing a deal.
The only M+A with doing for scale is Netomnia. When that is 100% on or off the table will you see other consolidation.
Outside on London, the smaller alt nets are not worthy of the effort yet.
“and establish the third national network the UK needs.”
Not really the UK as they dont cover N.Ireland and Wales (or is it Scotland?)
Hence, consolidation.
They cover Dundee in Scotland
They have quite a significant network presence across Scotland, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, Renfrewshire, Stirling and Inverness. The network becomes particularly appealing when you consider that, to my current knowledge, Aberdeen and Inverness don’t have a Virgin Media footprint.
I believe there is a smaller Altnet operating in and around Inverness, and GoFibre has also built out on the outskirts of Aberdeen. In fact, GoFibre would probably be one of the more attractive M&A targets for CityFibre, as I don’t believe their footprints overlap significantly or at all — again, based on my current knowledge.
Mubadala is one of the investment funds mentioned as threatening to withdraw or withhold investment from the UK. There may therefore be the possibility of a change in the ownership of CityFibre at some point in the near future.
I would not be surprised if CityFibre itself were made subject to a takeover move.
Who by, please enlighten us.
What a comment.
@Bob Jones:
Why would you not think that CityFibre itself would be an attractive takeover target for one of the major UK and/or European players?
No, do you?
In the UK specifically as you mention it, which UK telecoms firm is in a position to do and has the capital and would pass any CMA validation.
@Bob Jones:
Well, CityFibre is a potential target like all the others. As to who might make an offer, I do not give the research away for free. If you take a look at recent moves both here and on the Continent, then you might come to a similar conclusion.
So you don’t know and can’t provide a reasonable response.
As I suspected.
They kept promising to reach us – I even had a direct verbal confirmation from one of their engineers on a commercial site – but they never did. Luckily, Openreach finally arrived last year instead, but CityFibre would have offered more for less. Still seems touch and go as to whether they will cross the rubicon and become the ‘third network’, or be consumed by debt before they make it….
With a bit of luck, they’ll invest some money in doing a quality job. When they do installs, they plug in and leave without testing to ensure the new customer has service.
When there are problems, their support is abysmal.
They don’t check that the connection work, even to the ONT or router?
That is one thing about Zzoomm, they are pretty good doing that, my brother put an Ethernet cable to where he wanted the router and they set it up there for him.
As for support, sadly I think that is going to get worse, I was not impressed with what my brother got when his went down, took too long to get it back up and running.
Now these companies are going to cut costs by using A.i or sending their customer service to other countries.
Touch wood, I have not needed any for my own connection for over 2 years, but i am dreading it if I ever do.
That’s down to them using self employed contractors via Kelly’s who are paid very little per job and thus incentivised to cut corners and try to get in as many jobs as possible. It’s a shame but not surprising.
I doubt that. The connections installed by any fibre provider are more likely to be automatically tested, verified and confirmed to the engineer before the engineer leaves the premises.
The fact the finance costs are almost 3 times the top line revenue is where I struggle to see a viable business into the future. They will need to raise further funds if for nothing else to cover the losses, but even assuming the penetration increases hugely as the footprint is pretty static, can CF ever survive without a huge haircut for the investors? Plus interest rates are likely to increase further in the short term too.
After TalkTalk, could this be another telco punt where there are PE losses awaiting?
The big difference is that CityFibre are enjoying explosive growth whereas TT was circling the drain. I’m not saying it’s a sure thing or anything but I don’t think CityFibre’s investors have a lot to worry about at the moment. Once growth starts to plateau they can and will increase revenues further by moving prices closer to Openreach’s.
Their net liability works out at £1,250 per premises passed. Their investors and lenders have a lot to worry about. With that amount of debt their equity is worthless, which is a major headache if they are hoping to do some part cash, part equity acquisitions and mergers. And they are hoping to do some part equity deals, because £900m isn’t enough to buy another 3m premises passed in all-cash deals.
They even say “we are in discussion with our lenders to establish a strong, long-term capital structure for the business”.
They need to create some clear equity value within the business so they can convince other altnets to accept Cityfibre equity as full or partial payment. It seems obvious to me they are in discussion with their lenders about a potential debt-for-equity restructuring.
The debt needs to be managed, obviously, but by worry I meant it’s not an “oh no it’s all gone wrong situation”. This is just the reality of going from zero to scale in a short amount of time – nobody is surprised. Investors should worry if revenue growth falls off but so far that shows no sign of happening.