CityFibre shares disappear as nascent broadband firm goes private

Shares in one of Britain’s fastest-growing fibre broadband networks disappeared from the London Stock Exchange on Friday morning, as CityFibre officially went private.

The previously AIM-traded firm said that, following its application to the LSE, its shares were cancelled from trading at 0800 BST.

It followed the suspension of its shares at 0730 BST on Thursday morning, as the court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement actioning the takeover of CityFibre by a consortium of Antin Infrastructure Partners and West Street Global Infrastructure Partners became effective.

Under the terms of the acquisition, announced on 24 April, CityFibre shareholders were offered 81p in cash for each CityFibre share, which represented a significant 92.9% premium to its closing price on 23 April and a 47.3% premium to CityFibre’s placing share price on 28 July last year.

“CityFibre has established itself as a leading independent provider of wholesale fibre infrastructure in the UK and has been on a transformational journey since its IPO in 2014,” said CityFibre chairman Chris Stone at the time of the announcement.

“Your board believes that this transaction represents compelling value for CityFibre's existing shareholders and is also a good solution for CityFibre's long-term funding.”

Stone said that under private ownership, CityFibre would be able to gain alternative and potentially easier access to the financing required for its announced fibre-to-the-home deployment.

“This will strengthen the company's ability to deliver on its vision to provide full fibre infrastructure to 20% of the UK market.”

CityFibre, which initially focussed on building network infrastructure for corporate and institutional purposes, has recently been taking advantage of sweeteners from Westminster to begin the construction of several fibre-to-the-home broadband networks across the UK, in partnership with a number of telecoms retail partners.