Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, a UK-listed investment fund, has agreed to buy the wholesale fibre and business connectivity unit of BT Ireland in a deal worth €22 million.
BT Ireland Communications Ireland Ltd (BTCIL), the business being acquired, has about 3,400km of managed fibre and services about 400 customers in the telecoms, enterprise and government sectors across Ireland.
The move follows Cordiant’s acquisition of Irish fibre networks companies Enet and Magnet Plus, together known as Speed Fibre Group, in late 2023.
BT Ireland, part of UK telecoms giant BT Group, agreed separately in December to sell its two data centres in Dublin to US data centre group Equinix for €59 million.
The latest deal excludes BTCIL’s customer base of multinationals and financial institutions and its 999 and 112 emergency call answering service (Ecas), together with associated employees, which will be separately carved out separately. BT will remain a customer of Cordiant for three years after the BTCIL transaction goes through.
BT Ireland last year pulled out of the running in a Department of Communications tendering process relating to the next Ecas contract. BT Ireland’s agreement runs until November 2025, though there is a clause in the documents that allows the Government to extend the term for a further two years.
Some 300 of BT Ireland’s current 650 workforce will remain with the company following the completion of the data centres and fibre and business connectivity segments during the course of 2025.
BT Group hired investment bankers at UBS last year to advise on a strategic review of its Irish business, more than four years after talks to sell the business for about €300 million were abandoned. The UK group is focusing more on its home market amid a multibillion-pound cost-cutting programme.
The business serving multinationals and financial institutions that is being retained was not part of the sale process, as this remains a key market. “Ireland remains a key market for BT. The strategic review focused on the unit that serves wholesale and enterprise businesses,” a spokeswoman said.
“We have transformed our operations in Ireland over the past eighteen months to position our various business units for future growth. This new chapter will see BT focusing on multinationals and large organisations in Ireland with Speed Fibre as its wholesale network and national services partner,” said Shay Walsh, managing director of BT Ireland.
“Through this transaction, I am confident that the complementary strengths of both entities will unlock new opportunities, drive innovation, and sustain long-term growth in the Irish telecommunications market.”
Steven Marshall, executive chairman of Cordiant, and Benn Mikula, chief executive of the company, said the BTCIL purchase represents “a significant step in our strategy to build scale in key digital markets such as Ireland”.
BT made an initial foray into the Republic in 1998 when it set up Ocean, a fixed-wire joint venture with ESB. The London-based group acquired Denis O’Brien-founded Esat Telecom two years later. It subsequently bought ESB out of Ocean to settle a dispute with the State-owned electricity group over the Esat deal.
BT rolled Esat’s mobile business, Esat Digifone, into its wireless division, which would be spun out in 2011 as a separate company initially called mmO2, but later rebranded O2. Spain’s Telefonica bought O2 in 2005, before selling the Irish mobile business to Three Ireland in 2014.
BT Group entered exclusive talks in 2019 to sell BT Ireland to UK investment firm Mayfair Equity Partners. However, the talks broke down early the following year, with the decision reportedly down to a change of heart on the part of BT at the time.
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