Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, a UK-listed investment fund, has been cleared by Irish competition authorities to buy the wholesale fibre and business connectivity unit of BT Ireland in a deal worth €22 million.
BT Ireland Communications Ireland Ltd, the business being acquired, has about 3,400km of managed fibre and services about 400 customers in the telecoms, enterprise and government sectors across Ireland.
Cordiant said in a statement on Tuesday that the purchase has been cleared by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC).
The latest deal excludes BT Connectivity’s customer base of multinationals and financial institutions and its 999 and 112 emergency call answering service, together with associated employees, which will be separately carved out. BT will remain a customer of Cordiant for three years after the transaction goes through.
“The remaining conditions to closing relate to approval under Ireland’s foreign direct investment legislation as well as the completion of the transfer to BT of the retained businesses from BT Connectivity Ireland Ltd which are outside of the transaction perimeter,” Cordiant said, adding that it expects the final conditions to be met and the transaction closed later in 2025.
The move follows Cordiant’s acquisition of Irish fibre networks companies Enet and Magnet Plus, together known as Speed Fibre Group, in late 2023. Speed Fibre Group is the Cordiant entity that is technically acquiring the BT unit.
BT Ireland, led by managing director Shay Walsh and part of UK telecoms giant BT Group, agreed separately in December to sell its two data centres in Dublin to US data centre group Equinix for €59 million.
BT Ireland last year pulled out of the running in a Department of Communications tendering process relating to the next emergency service call answering contract. BT Ireland’s agreement runs until November 2025, though there is a clause in the documents that allows the Government to extend the term for a further two years.
Some 300 of BT Ireland’s current 650 workforce will remain with the company following the completion of the sale of the data centres and fibre and business connectivity segments over the course of 2025.
BT Group hired investment bankers at UBS last year to advise on a strategic review of its Irish business, more than four years after talks to sell the entire business for about €300 million were abandoned. The UK group is focusing more on its home market amid a multibillion-pound cost-cutting programme.
The Irish business serving multinationals and financial institutions that is being retained was not part of the sale process, as this remains a key market.
BT made an initial foray into the Republic in 1998 when it set up Ocean, a fixed-wire joint venture with ESB. The London-based group acquired Denis O’Brien-founded Esat Telecom two years later. It subsequently bought ESB out of Ocean to settle a dispute with the State-owned electricity group over the Esat deal.
BT rolled Esat’s mobile business, Esat Digifone, into its wireless division, which would be spun out in 2011 as a separate company initially called mmO2, but later rebranded O2. Spain’s Telefónica bought O2 in 2005, before selling the Irish mobile business to Three Ireland in 2014.
BT Group entered exclusive talks in 2019 to sell BT Ireland to UK investment firm Mayfair Equity Partners. However, the talks broke down early the following year, with the decision reportedly down to a change of heart on the part of BT at the time.
