On Friday October 30th 2020, Relined Fiber Network (“Relined”), the subsidiary of TenneT B.V. (“TenneT”), signed an agreement to acquire Globalways GmbH (“Globalways”) from Datacenter One (“DC1”).
Relined was founded as a joint-venture between TenneT and ProRail in 2003 to market its unused fiber capacity across the Netherlands. Today, Relined focuses on localising, marketing and renting out unused public and private fiber optic capacity in the B2B market in the form of dark fiber. The company’s dark fiber network spans approximately 30,000km and connects to more than 118 data centers. Relined has activities across the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, including city rings in Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
Relined first expanded into Germany in 2017. It has built a nationwide dark fibre network connecting over 20 data centres and with capacity in cities including Frankfurt. Relined’s decision to take over Globalways GmbH was prompted by a desire to even better fulfil increasing demand for connectivity on the German market.
Globalways was founded in 2001 and is a high-speed B2B connectivity services provider in the Stuttgart metro area, Germany’s second strongest economic area. Over the last 18 years, Globalways has become a highly focused fiber connectivity player boasting access to over 360km of fiber network in Stuttgart today.
“Our ambitions are big, both in the Netherlands and in Germany. We want to grow, and we are continuing to take steps towards this. For us, increasing demand for connectivity on the German market was the principal reason for entering into negotiations with Datacenter One, and this led to the takeover of Globalways. This will allow for even better use of our nationwide Dark Fiber backbone in Germany and will mean that even more connections can be made to the Nordics through the COBRA Fiber Optic Cable. We are immensely pleased with the takeover, which is a great springboard to further expansions on the German market” – Kristel Landa, Managing Director Relined Fiber Network.
CASE Corporate Finance and ABN AMRO acted as financial advisers to Relined.