en.Wedoany.com Reported - UK fibre operator CityFibre has announced it will sell its wholesale division Entanet to telecom entrepreneur Tom O'Hagan. CityFibre stated that this move is a "natural next step" in its relationship with Entanet, helping to simplify its business model and allowing it to focus on expanding services based on its own infrastructure.
CityFibre acquired Entanet for £29 million in July 2017, but did not disclose the proceeds from this sale. Buyer O'Hagan previously founded and led UK wholesaler Virtual1, which was acquired by TalkTalk in 2022 and merged into its B2B wholesale services division, now known as PlatformX Communications.
O'Hagan said he had built a leading UK wholesale business and now sees a good opportunity with Entanet. He added that Entanet is a strong business with a 30-year history and a loyal partner base, and his intention is to build it into a wholesale platform of real scale, which requires investment in automation and a broader product portfolio. O'Hagan also noted that CityFibre's network is central to this ambition, and as part of the deal, Entanet will become a new wholesale customer of CityFibre. He sees a real opportunity to consolidate the fragmented wholesale market, and Entanet is the right platform to execute this goal.
CityFibre positions itself as a leader in the wave of consolidation in the UK fibre market, but its financial challenges may impact these ambitions. The sale of Entanet is touted as a way to focus on its core business—laying fibre and securing ISP customers. CityFibre's acquisition of Entanet nearly nine years ago provided it with wholesale expertise and a partner base to drive commercial market growth and increase its own network penetration. Now, it aims to concentrate investment on that network and expand the wholesale platform to meet growth demands.
Currently, CityFibre's network covers nearly 5 million premises, with the latest count at the end of last year being 4.7 million, of which 4.5 million are service-ready. A month ago, the company celebrated connecting 1 million of these. CityFibre's Chief Commercial Officer, George Wareing, said that the acquisition of Entanet nearly a decade ago played a significant role in accelerating commercial market growth, and this sale is a natural next step, allowing it to simplify its model and fully focus on delivering services over its own infrastructure, thereby innovating faster, improving performance, and supporting all customers more effectively.
