UK fibre: lenders seize control of Gigaclear following debt restructure, Infracapital wipeout
Joe Purnell and Alex Birkhead2026-04-09T14:24:00
In depth: rural provider handed over to lenders in sweeping recapitalisation, following £0.5bn+ debt and equity write-down, with cashflow inflection point said to be on the horizon. Investors zeroed out, following abandoned trade sale, with spotlight also on National Wealth Fund sector exposure…
This article includes:
- Themes: Asset-light model; Balance sheet; Bridging funds; Capital structure; Cashflow positivity; Creditors; Customer additions; Debt financing; Deleveraging; Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA); Equity commitment; Fibre altnet; Financial restructure; Free cashflow; Full-fibre network; Haircut; Impairment; Infrastructure investment; Lenders; Limited partners; Network expansion; Project Gigabit; Recapitalisation; Revenue; Subsidised contracts; Take-up rate; Trade sale; Write-downs.
- People: Nathan Rundle.
- Geographic: UK; Oxfordshire; Gloucestershire.
- Organisations: ABN AMRO; Altnet Partners; Building Digital UK (BDUK); CityFibre; Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC); Equitix; Fibrus; Financial Times; Freedom Fibre; Gigaclear; Grain Connect; Greenfield Partners I Fund; HSBC; InfraBridge; Infracapital; KCOM; Kommunalkredit; LBBW; Lloyds; M&G; Morrison Infrastructure; NAB; National Wealth Fund; NatWest; nexfibre; NIBC; Quickline; Railpen; Rothschild; Santander; SEB; Substantial Group (Netomnia/YouFire); Trooli; Voneus; WightFibre; Wildanet.