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Alternative rural network provider Voneus, which has built a mix of full fibre (FTTP) and wireless (FWA) broadband networks across some remote parts of Wales and England, have published their annual accounts to the end of March 2025. The figures show that turnover increased 43% to £6.33m due to customer growth, but they suffered a loss before tax of £38m.
Just to recap. Voneus was last year hit by some redundancies and a slowdown in their network build (here), due to many of the same pressures as other altnets have been facing (rising build costs, competition and high interest rates etc.). Back in 2024 they also withdrew (here) from the publicly funded Project Gigabit broadband build contract for Mid West Shropshire (Lot 25.01), which has since been picked up by Openreach (here).
However, at the end of last year they did manage to strengthen their position for “long-term growth” with a business reorganisation, which was said to have secured their funding through to 2030. This involved the renegotiation of an existing £70m loan facility with banking partners, which is intended to support future network commercialisation.
The company’s latest annual accounts help to show why they needed to strike the aforementioned agreement and Voneus’ directors say they now have a “reasonable expectation that the company has adequate resources to continue to operate in the foreseeable future“.
Summary of Key Figures – Voneus Accounts (March 2025)
➤ Turnover increased 43% to £6.33m due to customer growth (2024: £4.41m).
➤ Gross profit increased to £800k (2024: £768k), although gross profit margin declined to 13% (2024: 17%).
➤ Employees grew to 275 (2024: 238).
➤ Losses before tax increased to £38m (2024: £36.6m).
➤ Government grant receipts (gigabit vouchers etc.) increased to £2.25m (2024: £1.12m).
➤ Net assets worth £136.18m
Voneus are currently in the process of conducting a “business reorganisation to ensure operational efficiency and future scalability“, which is already known to include the “outsourcing of some business functions” and may result in a “limited number of redundancies“ (here).