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Zzoomm is reportedly through to the second round of bidding to acquire its fellow altnet, which has also drawn attention from the likes of Virgin Media O2 (VMO2)
With the glut of investment in the UK fibre market finally beginning to dry up due to challenging economic conditions, consolidation appears to be on the horizon for the country’s altnet community.
Last month, reports suggested that altnet Trooli, which covers over 275,000 UK homes with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), was being put up for sale.
It did not take long for the move to draw the attention of some of the market’s biggest players, with VMO2 being named in media reports.
Now, further reports from Sky News suggest that one of Trooli’s altnet peers, Zzoomm, could be interested in a merger. According to sources, Zzoomm has made it through to the second round of an auction being conducted by bankers at Lazard.
Zzoomm currently has roughly 100,000 premises passed by its own fibre network and has ambitions of expanding this total to one million.
Any deal for Trooli is likely to be valued at over £100 million.
In related news, last month we saw altnet consolidation already underway, with Fern Trading Limited, owner of Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre, Giganet, and AllPoints Fibre, merging the four networks into a single FTTH player.
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