On behalf of nexfibre’s shareholders: InfraVia, Liberty Global and Telefónica.
“The CMA’s Interim Report is fundamentally flawed. Its conclusions rely on counterfactuals that do not reflect the commercial and financial reality of the UK fibre market. In particular, the assumption that CityFibre will acquire Netomnia is not a credible basis on which to judge this transaction. Nor is the assumption that the billions of pounds of investment enabled by this deal would simply happen anyway.
Since the Interim Report was published, that position has become even harder to sustain. BT’s acquisition of TalkTalk is shrinking the available wholesale market, while CityFibre’s latest accounts and debt restructuring raise further questions about its financial viability. The market has moved on and the CMA’s analysis must move with it.
We engaged in good faith on potential remedies, including commitments on investment and wholesale access. But there is no remedies package that can address the CMA’s current counterfactuals, and on that basis we have not submitted one.
The UK now faces a stark choice: a real, funded plan to unlock £3.5 billion of investment and develop a scaled and sustainable challenger to Openreach, or a fantasy future that will never come.
We remain ready to engage constructively with CMA once the counterfactuals reflect the reality of the market.”