Nexfibre will not submit remedies to the Competition and Markets Authority for its planned 2 billion pound acquisition of Substantial Group, which includes fibre network Netomnia. In a joint statement, its owners InfraVia, Liberty Global and Telefonica called the CMA’s interim report “fundamentally flawed” and said no remedies package can address the regulator’s current counterfactuals.
The CMA’s interim report, published earlier in October, found the deal could substantially lessen competition in wholesale fibre. The regulator’s analysis treated rival CityFibre acquiring Substantial Group as the most likely alternative if the Nexfibre deal does not proceed. Nexfibre’s owners dispute that directly: “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.”
The deal, agreed in February, would combine Netomnia, whose network passes more than three million premises with over 460,000 customers on the figures reported by Datacenter Dynamics, with the wholesale network backed by Virgin Media O2’s owners. The partners say it would unlock 3.5 billion pounds of investment and reach about eight million premises by the end of 2027. Under the proposed structure the retail brands, including YouFibre, would be sold on, with Virgin Media O2 taking the retail operations for 150 million pounds in the version reported by Broadband TV News.
The shareholders also pointed to BT’s acquisition of TalkTalk, which they said is shrinking the wholesale market, and to questions over CityFibre’s finances. With no remedies offered, the CMA must now decide on its interim reasoning. Responses to the interim report are due by October 23, and the statutory deadline for the final decision is December 15, 2026.