Ufinet International I

At the time of Cinven’s investment, Ufinet International was the largest digital infrastructure neutral operator in Latin America. The company operated in more than 14 countries including Colombia, Panama, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Chile and Brazil. Ufinet faced limited exposure in Latin America as revenues were largely USD denominated by contract except in Columbia. Its international connectivity network had more than c.49,000 km of optical fibre deployed across major cities and regions as well as 9 Data Centers. Ufinet Group’s primary source of revenue was derived from the leasing of optical fibre infrastructure (‘dark fibre’ services) and provision of transmission services (‘lit fibre’) to international carriers, hyperscalers and large corporates, with additional offerings such as datacenter colocation and cloud, FTTH and towering. The business showed strong financial metrics including high double digit organic growth coupled with solid cash generation. Investment thesis was predicated on the highly defensive infrastructure nature of the asset providing an essential service, with hard to replicate assets and good cash flow visibility from long-term contracts in dollars, that at the same time was a strong growth platform given significant organic and inorganic market growth opportunity in Latin America coupled with Ufinet’s competitive moat which allows them to reinvest cashflows at attractive double-digit returns.