Image: Marco Photo Garcia/Shutterstock
New funding will support Cignal’s portfolio development and expansion of tower network to address coverage blackspots.
Bank of Ireland and AIB have backed an expansion of telecoms infrastructure player Cignal’s finance facility to €65m to enable it to expand its tower network across Ireland.
In August, Siliconrepublic.com reported that Cignal spent €15m in the prior 18 months acquiring and building mobile and broadband towers across urban and rural Ireland.
‘The new bank facility will support the next phase in our growth plans’
– COLIN CUNNINGHAM
Since acquiring a portfolio of 400 sites from Collite in 2015 as part of a €31m facility, the company added a further 100 sites through a series of acquisitions and new site developments.
This is now being refinanced and expanded to €65m, providing additional funding to be invested in new telecoms and broadband communications towers to address coverage blackspots throughout Ireland.
A clear Cignal
From left: Cignal chair Donal O’Shaughnessy and CEO Colin Cunningham. Image: Cignal
Cignal now has 18pc of the Irish market for infrastructure supporting mobile, fixed wireless broadband communications and broadcast services, with a customer base that includes all the main mobile services providers in Ireland, the emergency services and FM radio stations.
Bank of Ireland, which has been a lender to Cignal since the company was set up in 2015, acted as lead arranger for the new facilities along with AIB, which is now a joint lender to the business.
“The new bank facility will support the next phase in our growth plans,” said Cignal CEO Colin Cunningham.
The refinancing has been supported by its majority shareholder, Infravia Capital Partners, a specialist infrastructure investor managing more than €4bn in assets. In Ireland, Infravia has acquired hospital group Mater Private and nursing homes operator CareChoice.
