The company
Glide designs, installs and manages fibre networks required to deliver broadband connectivity together with other critical products and services to student accommodation, the private rental sector and small and medium sized enterprises. Inflexion’s investment has helped the company to build the UK’s leading fibre network in this specialist market reaching 100,000 premises and approximately 250,000 customers.
The Inflexion investment
In October 2013, management of Glide (then CableCom) were looking for an investor to help expand capacity and improve services, and chose Inflexion based on our technological expertise and M&A experience. We appointed a highly experienced Chairman from our network to work with the strong management team, and the partnership saw Glide develop into a unique national asset with a leading market position. During the period of our investment, EBITDA increased by 160%.
The Inflexion difference
Inflexion used its experience in M&A to support the expansion of the business through two strategic high-growth acquisitions (i) Glide, which expanded the range of services provided and (ii) WarwickNet, which expanded the customer base into the business sector and provided access to a fibre network installation capability. Following the acquisitions, the business was renamed Glide.
We also supported significant investment into building a national network and market leading position with 250,000 kilometres of fibre and 250 fibre points of presence, passing 94,000 premises and reaching 250,000 customers.
Inflexion has been a vital part of our success as we have significantly transformed and grown our business. Their strong experience in the technology and telecoms sector has been invaluable as we have expanded our network, enhanced our capacity and improved our services. With Inflexion’s support we were able to successfully complete two transformational strategic acquisitions, making Glide a national leader in our target markets. We look forward to continuing building on this success with our new partners.
