Lower Austria launches a tender for a 74.9% stake in its FTTH-network project

The Austrian federal state of Lower Austria is seeking an investor for its roll-out of a Fibre-to-the-Home broadband network. It launched a tender procedure in July 2019 for the sale of a 74.9% stake in the project company responsible for a broadband glass fibre network that will reach a total of 140,000 homes/buildings:

The state government is responsible for covering 40,000 homes in mainly rural areas in a first phase, which is currently underway. The tendered project will cover a further 100,000 homes and businesses in phase 2.

Phase 1 will be integrated into phase 2 and will have to be refinanced.

The project will use the 3-Layer-Open-Model. Under this model, the project company builds and owns the passive infrastructure. A neutral operator then undertakes the active operation. The active operator will install the equipment for the active operation and provide the network to all the internet service providers interested in selling services and content to businesses and private customers.

The investor is expected to provide the capital required for the development and construction of the passive network. The project company will have access to all the experience gathered during phase 1 as well as support for the demand aggregation.

The investment is estimated to be approximately 300m EUR.

Any interested party is invited to submit an expression of interest and to make suggestions by 10 September 2018. The publication of the tender can be found by following this link.

Interested parties are free to register by sending an email to [email protected] where they will be provided with an NDA and then access to an information memorandum and further documents.