Swift expansion for HighSpeed Office Ltd

Investee Company – HighSpeed Office Ltd

Investee Company Country – UK

Investee Company Business Type – Broadband service provider

Type of Financing – Expansion

Equity Providers – Marconi, The British Land Company PLC, Canary Wharf Group PLC, Legal & General Property Ltd, Morley Fund Management, Prudential Property Investment Managers Ltd

Equity Leader (Individual) – Daren Morris, Marconi

Debt Providers – N/A

Debt Type – N/A

Debt Leader (Individual) – N/A

Equity Amount – £15 million

Total Deal Value – £15 million

Other Advisors – Morgan Stanley & Co Ltd, ARC Associates

Comments – Broadband service provider, HighSpeed Office Ltd (HSO), has announced that it has raised £15 million from Marconi and a consortium of UK landlords. Members of the consortium consisted of The British Land Company PLC, Canary Wharf Group PLC, Legal & General Property Ltd, Morley Fund Management and Prudential Property Investment Managers Ltd.

The investment follows an announcement in January that the consortium had chosen HSO to supply high speed telecommunications services to tenants in their commercial properties. The capacity of the consortium following the recent addition of RREEF is constitutive of 900 buildings in the UK comprising of 60 million square feet of office space. Following the investment the consortium are situated as majority shareholders in HSO.

Founded in early 2000 by the telecoms focused investment bank and advisory firm, ARC Associates, HSO was set up to supply broadband services to SME’s in the UK and Europe. The company now has plans to launch broadband services in June, followed by a rapid roll out across the UK. Support is also being made available from the Marconi Network Operation Centre (NOC), based in Liverpool.

Chris Butchers, Chief Executive of HSO said: “Funding the business plan fully in the currently volatile market will provide us with an enormous competitive advantage and validates the viability of our strategy to supply broadband services directly to the desktop.”