Grain secures £225 million funding boost to accelerate network expansion

Broadband provider Grain has closed a £212.5 million debt facility with funds and/or accounts managed, advised or controlled by HPS Investment Partners, LLC or its subsidiaries.

Grain, which is backed by Equitix and Albion Capital, has secured the debt facility to underpin the next stage in their growth journey.

Equitix is also investing an additional £13 million of equity into the business – the fifth time that they have invested additional capital into Grain, demonstrating the confidence they have in the industry leading efficient model that has been created.

The backing will see Grain expand its network to cover c.600,000 premises as the next step on its strategy to build over one million premises, one of the largest organic builds in the sector.

Grain delivers Full Fibre broadband on their own independent network, with significant coverage already in areas including the North East, North West and the Midlands and continues to commit to never installing telegraph poles in their network.

The Carlisle-based company, which couples the most efficient network deployment to connect premises with the lowest operating cost per customer in the industry, turned EBITDA positive earlier in the year.

Richard Cameron CEO said: “We are very pleased to partner with HPS, a partnership which demonstrates the strength of the advantages we have over the whole market and the strong financial performance we have delivered to date.

“External benchmarking shows that the next most efficient provider to build and connect homes spends 47% more than Grain and our operating cost per customer is 60% lower than the market.”

Grain was advised by CMS and Lazard.

Richard Cameron, Grain CEO