This article is more than 1 year old

Not-BT-Openreach' biz CityFibre sextuples pipeline

Seems to be doing a roaring trade

Cable-layer CityFibre has booked a six-fold increase in contracts during its first half of 2016, with £53.8m in the pipeline compared with £8.1m for the same period last year.

New contracts signed in the period comprise 3,702 new customers, more than three times the total amount on the books in 2015 (1,110), and more than eight times the number added in the first six months of 2015 (458), said the biz in its trading update.

At the end of last year, CityFibre coughed up £90m for its acquisition of Kcom's legacy network. That came out of the outfit's war-chest of £180m in funding.

The acquisition had a huge impact on its bumper increase in sales booked over the next five years.

The biz will announce its full financial results for the six months to 30 June 2016 on 26 September 2016 but it said performance so far is in line with expectations for the full year.

According to its Companies House filing for the full year 2015, revenue rose 67 per cent to £6.4m. Gross profit was up 68 per cent to £5.5m, while net loss after tax was £6.4m - a slight improvement on its total losses of £7m for 2014.

James Enck, head of corporate development at the biz, said the company is on the look out for new additions. "We were born out of acquisitions, so we are always looking out for more."

He said earnings before interest taxes and amortization are on track to reach £2.5m this year.

CityFibre describes its pitch as providing a “competitive alternative to BT Openreach.”

It has a “medium-term” aspiration to expand to 50 cities, comprising 10,000 mobile cell site locations, 35,000 public sector sites, 350,000 businesses and five million homes. It also wants to work with 100 service providers over the next three years.

The biz had 105 employees at the end of 2015, up from 76 the previous year.

CityFibre recently complained to the competitions watchdog that Ofcom is backtracking on its promise to break the country's dependency on BT's Openreach by forcing greater access to its ducts and poles.

The Company ended the first half with 49 service provider partnerships, up from 33 one year ago and 41 at the end of 2015.

That included Level 3 and SSE Enterprise Telecoms, which joined CityFibre's growing ranks of national partners, including KCOM, Vodafone, MBNL, Three UK, Capita, Serco, Interoute and Logicalis. ®

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