Major township fibre deal in South Africa

The Competition Commission has given its nod to a proposed deal between township fibre company Fibertime, Refiber, and Onepath Investments.

South Africa’s competition watchdog described the deal as Refiber and Onepath acquiring last-mile dark fibre networks that Fibertime still needs to deploy around the country.

Fibertime is known for its R5 per day uncapped fibre product that it launched in Kayamandi near Stellenbosch last year.

Former iBurst and Mxit CEO Alan Knott-Craig (junior) launched Fibertime, then Iziswe, in November 2022 to provide affordable uncapped fibre to South African townships.

In May 2024, Fibertime told MyBroadband that it connected 9,100 homes to its network. These were split between Kayamandi, with 7,800 homes connected, and townships in Gqeberha, contributing a further 1,300 homes.

MyBroadband contacted Fibertime for an update on these figures earlier this year, but it did not provide feedback.

We also contacted them about the deal with Refiber and Onepath, but Fibertime did not respond by publication.

Last week, Finnfund announced that made a €2-million (R39.6-million) follow-on investment in Fibertime Group.

Finnfund said the investment would support Fibertime’s goal to connect up to 1.8 million homes to the Internet.

Fibertime Group is comprised of subsidiaries Fibertime, the fiber network operator, and VulaCoin, a blockchain-based platform to sell prepaid airtime.

The Commission has recommended that the Competition Tribunal approve the transaction between Fibertime, and Refiber and Onepath unconditionally.

It said the transaction is unlikely to substantially lessen or prevent competition in any market and does not raise significant public interest concerns.

“Refiber is jointly controlled by two firms and OPI is controlled by Refiber,” the Commission said.

“Refiber and OPI are involved in the acquisition and leasing back of network infrastructure such as Internet fibre networks,” it explained.

“They lease infrastructure to fibre network operators who provide Internet fibre services to residential and business customers. The acquiring group owns two fibre networks in the Eastern Cape.”

It should be noted that the transaction is not to acquire Fibertime, but dark fibre assets that Fibertime is going to develop.

“The target assets consist of last-mile dark fibre infrastructure, which includes the infrastructure from the customer premises to a localised point of presence, to be deployed in over 280 townships throughout South Africa,” the Commission said.

“This excludes the two townships where Refiber and Onepath currently own dark fibre infrastructure.”

Refiber and Onepath Investments

Querying the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission database revealed that Refiber’s directors are Andrew Brooking and Simon Fifield.

Brooking is a corporate finance executive and founding director of Java Capital who began his career as an attorney, qualifying in South Africa and in the US as a member of the New York Bar.

Java Capital is a corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and equity capital markets boutique firm, providing advisory and transaction implementation services to companies.

Fifield is the founder and CEO of Capensis Real Estate, and a director on the board of Redefine Properties.

Brooking and Fifield are also the directors of Onepath Investments, joined by Jason van Wyk, who is a corporate finance executive at Java Capital.