Macquarie grabs KCOM

MEIF 6 Fibre (a Macquarie fund) is to buy KCOM Group in a deal that values the company at £627 million ($787.5 million) or just over 120p per share.
The deal is a significant improvement on that offered by the Humber Bidco unit of British pension fund Universities Superannuation Scheme Ltd (USSL). However, it was a disappointing result for long-standing shareholders who bought shares when KCOM initially floated in 1999 at 225p.
KCOM is attractive to investors as it provides a fully fibre network in the only area of the UK not served by BT. In May 2019 it completed its £85 million ‘Lightstream’ rollout which delivers a 1Gbit/s FTTP solution to 200,000 premises (96% of the addressable area). The remaining 4% of customers will have 75Mbit/s FTTC.
Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) manages fibre and cable broadband networks, broadband infrastructure, secure mobile networks, pay-tv and mobile towers. It supplies infrastructure used by the UK’s major broadcasters and mobile network providers, and has also invested in Arqiva, Poland-based INEA and Denmark’s TDC.