Global Voice, the Irish-run but Singapore-listed telecoms group, is to relaunch itself as Europe's largest private fibre network provider.
The company, which was founded in 2002 through the management buyout of European assets of Metromedia Fibre Networks, will rebrand itself as EuNetworks on Monday. It will also formally announce the €18.5 million acquisition of a long-distance European fibre network from Viatel and the completion of a €35 million fund raising.
The Viatel network will be used to link Global Voice's existing "metropolitan" networks in 14 European cities, including Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Berlin together. This will allow it to offer clients their own dedicated secure European fibre networks as an alternative to using lines leased from telecoms operators, according to chief executive Noel Meaney.
"It [ the acquisition] has catapulted us into having an international footprint," he said.
Mr Meaney was the chief executive of Metromedia Fibre Networks European operations when the company went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002.
Along with financier Chris Nightingale, he led the €60 million buyout of the metropolitan networks built at a cost of €650 million. The two retain a 25 per cent stake in the business which floated on the Singapore stock exchange in 2004 and has a market capitalisation of over €170 million.
Following the Viatel deal, Global Voice will have acquired fibre assets that cost €2 billion to build for only a fraction of the building cost. The company claims this gives them a very significant cost advantage.
"The key to our success was that all the acquisitions were done when the assets were distressed," said Mr Meaney.
He added that the company had also kept costs down by avoiding taking on significant debt ahead of the recent €35 million bond issue. The company was originally backed by a group of around 50 Asia-based private equity investors.
Its headquarters are in Frankfurt and it employs 70 people, although the majority of the management team, including Mr Meaney are Irish.
"What we were buying were unique assets. They cost €2 billion and we see them as underground real estate. We knew that over time, the applications would arrive to utilise them," he said.
The company expects to move into profit this year, with a 20 per cent growth in sales predicted. Last year, it lost €5.2 million on sales of €10.58 million.
Only 5 per cent of the capacity of Global Vision's network is currently utilised and the group would be profitable if this increases to 8 per cent, according to the company.
Mr Meaney said the business would concentrate on two main markets. The first is the provision of additional fibre capacity to existing telecoms companies.
The other market is the provision of dedicated fibre networks to corporate customers.
