abrdn’s Core Infrastructure team has agreed to make a major equity investment in Wessex Internet. The investment will help to accelerate the deployment of Wessex Internet’s full fibre-to-the-home network across rural parts of the South West of England.
abrdn will work together with Wessex Internet’s founders to support their vision for the future growth of the business.
Wessex Internet is a full fibre operator in the South West of England, having built an impressive fibre footprint across Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset. The business has a network footprint covering tens of thousands of homes across these counties and has secured significant contracts underpinning a business plan that targets an additional 150,000 premises by 2027, through a combination of subsidised and unsubsidised capital investment. Notably, at the end of August 2022, the UK Government announced that Wessex Internet had been awarded the first subsidy contract under their new £5bn Project Gigabit broadband scheme, which will reach 7,100 premises in rural parts of North Dorset.
This is the first investment funded by abrdn’s third Core Infrastructure Fund, ASCI III, which is raising a target €1 billion to invest in the Pan-European infrastructure mid-market, and follows on from the final investment in abrdn’s second Core Infrastructure Fund, SLCI II, which invested in the German train rolling stock sector.
