Brsk secures a further £156 million in funding.
We're delighted to share that we have reached another milestone in our mission to bring better broadband to underserved areas of the UK. We have successfully secured an additional £156 million debt investment from funds managed by Ares Management Corporation’s (“Ares”) Infrastructure Debt strategy. This funding has been upsized from an initial £103 million commitment and now totals £259 million. This financing will support our growth and enable our Full Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) broadband network to reach the million-homes mark by 2026.
Brsk was founded by Giorgio Iovino and Ian Kock in 2020, both founding members of Vumatel, which is now the largest fibre network in South Africa. Together with support from equity partner Advencap, we are a team with a proven track record in the deployment of fibre optic infrastructure and are supporting the UK’s urgent need to progress from outdated copper-based broadband.
We're incredibly proud how rapidly our network has expanded from humble beginnings in West Yorkshire in 2021. Today, the network reaches into three more key urban regions, namely Manchester, the West Midlands and Lancashire, with approximately 250,000 ready for service (RFS) homes and with 14,000 customer connections.
Giorgio Iovino, co-founder of Brsk commented, “With support from Ares, our network has grown almost fivefold, we couldn’t be happier working with like-minded financing partners to make it possible. Securing this funding is a significant milestone in clearing the runway for us to take full fibre broadband to 1 million homes.”
James Fox, Managing Director, Infrastructure Debt at Ares said, “We are delighted by the opportunity to continue to transact with Brsk and support them on their next phase of growth. We have been pleased with the delivery of their plan since our initial investment and look forward to working with Giorgio and the team as they look to realise their goal of delivering fibre broadband to 1 million homes.”
Brsk was supported by Sullivan & Cromwell LLP as legal advisor.
Ares was supported by Baker Botts as legal advisor.
