InfraTech Finance

The combined factors of reduced opportunities for bricks and mortar infrastructure investment and an increased need for modern communications infrastructure have resulted in the emergence of InfraTech Finance as an area of great potential interest for investors.

The CMS InfraTech Finance team combines our considerable expertise in project and structured finance with a market-leading Telecoms team, with decades of knowledge of the Communications sector.  This means that we can not only guide investors and infrastructure providers on issues that you currently face, but also pre-empt and suggest solutions to what may be coming around the corner.  

Some of our experience includes advising:

• CityFibre on Corporate and capex financing arrangements including in relation to the deployment of ‘fibre to the home’ contractual arrangements with Vodafone.
• Hyperoptic on their acquisition by KKP including on financing arrangements as part of such acquisition.
• euNetworks Group on lending secured by commercial contracts and physical networks operated by the group across Europe, including as part of the recent Stonepeak investment.
• Macquarie Capital on their acquisition of part of the Masmobil’s fibre network in the 5 biggest cities in Spain and the financing of such acquisition.
• Aviva Investors on its debt and equity investments in TrueSpeed Communications (£75m), County Broadband (£46m) and ITS Technology Group (£45m), in each case to fund the roll out of ultrafast “full fibre” broadband networks.
• Alior Bank and Bank Zachodni on a super senior multicurrency revolving credit facility for Polish mobile telephone operator Play. The credit facility was provided alongside a EUR 870m three-tranche high yield bond issue.
• Cabletel on the financing of their acquisition of 14 cable telecoms companies in Bulgaria and Macedonia.
• Melita plc on the vendor financing of the roll-out of its 4G mobile network and financing by way of Maltese listed bonds of the construction of a submarine cable.
• Viatel on its financing by a consortium of lenders including Morgan Stanley and Varde Partners.
• SEE Telecommunications on the shared access arrangement with mobile network operators Three UK and O2 and the construction of a fibre-optic network within London’s sewers.
• EllaLink Ireland Limited and Marguerite on the EllaLink Cable system, a next-generation subsea cable linking Portugal and Brazil, worth $185m. We advised both the project company and the investment fund.
• LinkUK and various other stakeholders on an innovative financing of a new service in London called LinkUK for BT, to fund the roll-out of the first 750 kiosks.