The infrastructure equity investor, Infracapital, part of M&G Prudential, has bought a 50% stake in SSE Enterprise for £380 million. It will pay £215 million on completion of the deal, and £165 million in instalments (depending on the performance of the business).
This is yet another example of investors getting into the connectivity market in recent months. Both Hyperoptic and CityFibre have also been recent recipients of investment, with Hyperoptic securing £250 million from eight international banks for fibre build out and CityFibre securing a debt package of £1.12 billion after being bought by a Wall Street investment consortium in April 2018.
Such investments reflects confidence that the connected world will need network infrastructure. And while telecoms might not be the boom market it once was in the UK, it does promise steady returns over the long term – particularly in the metro area (for smart cities and environments) and for business customers.