News
The new NetCo was first announced in February
Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is seeking investment for its newly created network company, according to a Bloomberg report this week which cited people familiar with the matter.
The network business is reportedly worth £5 billion, with VMO2 seeking an additional £1 billion in investment through the sale of a minority stake. The size of the stake available is estimated to be between 20% and 40%, and could come as soon as next month, according to the article.
Back in February, Liberty Global, joint owner of VMO2 along with Telefonica, announced that it was preparing to spin off VMO2’s fixed broadband network into a fully owned wholesale subsidiary NetCo, which it said would establish the “biggest dedicated fixed network challenger [to Openreach] in the country”.
“This is a logical evolution of our fibre strategy that creates a clear, focused and scaled network entity within the Virgin Media O2 family which underpins our shift to a fully fibre network and reinforces our position as the leading challenger to Openreach in the market,” explained VMO2 CEO Lutz Schüler at the time.
This NetCo is not to be confused with nexfibre, the joint venture formed in 2022 between Liberty Global, Telefónica and Infravia. Nexfibre already covers roughly 1.3 million premises with full fibre and aims to increase this figure to 7 million homes, targeting those not currently covered by Virgin Media’s network of over 16 million premises.
Join Lutz Schüler at next month’s Connected Britain, 11-12 September in London, Get tickets here!
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