Altice Europe announced the launch of its new wholesale fiber division, Fastfiber, which is partially owned by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners.
Altice Europe said Fastfiber, which was previously known as Altice Portugal FTTH, was "by far the largest FTTH wholesaler" in Portugal with about four million homes passed at the end of last year. The newly minted Fastfiber is comprised of all of the Altice Portugal and MEO fiber assets in Portugal, including fiber-to-the-home and dark fiber. The transaction between the two companies valued Fastfiber at $4.9 billion.
Going forward, Fastfiber will sell wholesale services to all operators under the same financial terms as Altice Portugal FTTH while MEO will sell technical services to Fastfiber for the construction, maintenance and subscriber connections to the fiber network.
RELATED: Altice Europe strikes a $1.7B deal for first nationwide fiber wholesale business in Portugal
In December, Alice Europe's Portuguese subsidiary MEO inked a deal with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners to build the first nationwide fiber wholesaler in Portugal. As part of the deal, MEO sold off a minority equity stake of 49.99% in Altice Portugal's fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) assets for an initial price of $1.74 billion. In addition to boosting the Portuguese telecom market, that deal also helped Altice Europe pay down some of its debt.