October 16, 2024 – OMERS, along with other shareholders Altice, Allianz and AXA IM Alts, is pleased to announce that XpFibre, one of our digital assets in France, has successfully raised €5.8 billion of credit facilities, marking one of the largest multi-sourced transactions in the European digital infrastructure market to date.
XpFibre is the largest independent Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) operators in France delivering high speed internet to approximately 25% of the French territory in terms of homes passed.
The financing has been structured to achieve an Investment Grade rating by S&P and DBRS, facilitating both European institutional term loan and US Private Placement investor participation as part of a global, cross-border private placement process. The re-financing attracted large liquidity from long-term institutional creditors in addition to a group of leading infrastructure bank lenders.
Alastair Hall, Head of Europe, OMERS Infrastructure, said: “This refinancing is a vote of confidence in the strength of XpFibre. As the company’s rollout phase nears completion, now is the right time to put in place a capital structure that reflects XpFibre’s highly resilient business model, predictable cash flow and robust financial profile as well as supporting its continued rollout to customers. Congratulations to everyone involved.”
About OMERS Infrastructure OMERS Infrastructure manages infrastructure investments globally on behalf of OMERS, the defined benefit pension plan for municipal employees in the Province of Ontario, Canada, and third-party investors through its Strategic Partnership Program. OMERS Infrastructure manages approximately C$36 billion, including capital invested on behalf of OMERS and third parties, in approximately 30 investments located in North America, Western Europe, India and Australia, and across sectors including energy, digital and transportation. OMERS Infrastructure has employees in Toronto, New York, London, Amsterdam, Singapore and Sydney.
OMERS Infrastructure & digital
Digital, as one of OMERS Infrastructure’s priority sectors alongside Energy and Transportation, is a significant and growing focus area for our business globally. Digital investments have been a priority for the OMERS Infrastructure team for most of the last decade with OMERS inaugural transaction, the acquisition of an interest in XpFibre in France (announced in Q4 2018). The XpFibre platform has grown from c.1.5m homes passed and 0.3m homes connected at the end of 2018 to over 7.0m homes passed and c.3.8m homes connected today. Since the acquisition of XpFibre, OMERS exposure to the sector has expanded to new sub-sectors and geographies through investments in Deutsche Glasfaser, a German broadband business, Waveconn, an Australian telecom towers platform (a new business we combined after the acquisitions of TPG’s towers business and the company Stilmark), and Beanfield, a Canadian broadband company.
