Orange has reached a €1.3 billion ($1.52bn) financing agreement with CaixaBank and BNP Paribas, for its planned acquisition of fiber provider Scorefit.
The French telco announced the financing agreement on Tuesday, noting that it runs for five years.
Scorefit is owned by a BNP Paribas subsidiary and owns fiber access purchased on the wholesale market in France for Orange.
Orange noted that the agreement forms part of the company’s copper-to-fiber transition, which the carrier highlighted at its Capital Markets Day.
As with most telcos, Orange is looking to expand its fiber rollout and move its customers away from legacy copper networks.
Orange plans to phase out these legacy copper telephone networks in France by 2030. The carrier started its copper switch-off project in 2022. As of now, the company said it’s not selling any new copper-based services.
“This gradual closure of copper is closely linked to the progress of fiber deployment. In areas where fiber is readily available, the copper shutdown will naturally occur sooner but in all cases the copper shutdown and fiber rollout go hand in hand,” said Bénédicte Javelot, director of strategic projects and development at Orange, in a post last year.
Across Europe, Orange has deployed fiber to close to 60 million premises.
Read the orginal article: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/orange-lines-up-13bn-acquisition-of-scorefit/
