Swoop acquires Sydney-based dark fibre provider Luminet for $8 million

ASX-listed telco Swoop is set to acquire Sydney-based Luminet and its dark fibre network for $8 million.

Founded in 2008, Luminet specialises in the design, deployment and support of private dark fibre. The company's dark fibre footprint spans Sydney CBD and other metro areas, connecting with global hyperscalers and data centre companies like Equinix and Global Switch.

The purchase price comprises $6.4 million in cash and $1.6 million in Swoop shares, and will be funded from existing cash reserves. The acquisition is expected to finish 28 February 2022.

“Acquiring Luminet’s dark fibre network is a great fast track for our investment in dark fibre,” Swoop chief executive Alex West said.

“The 58km network covers many of Sydney’s most important interconnection points, data centres as well as Hyperscale facilities. Like our previous fibre acquisition, it is predominantly built in its own ducts, and with significantly larger fibre core counts presenting great opportunities for growth.” 

“As we saw from Vocus, we started the fibre journey with roughly the same amount of cable on some of the same key routes that saw us grow into one of the largest fibre infrastructure providers in Australia.”

“We are excited to bring together this asset along with one of Australia’s largest fixed wireless networks to continue to offer great solutions to our growing customer base.”

Swoop chairman James Spenceley said, “it is very exciting to be building on our recently announced investment into fibre assets again.” 

Swoop also purchased Adelaide-based, dark fibre operator Ifibre in January for $1.5 million, continuing an acquisition spree from last year that claimed Beam, Community Communications, Speedweb, Countrytell, and other networks. 

Swoop announced a $41 million capital raise in October last year to fund both future and previous acquistions. Swoop released approximately 22 million shares at $1.85 per share.Swoop relisted on the ASX in February last year in a reverse takeover involving Stemify Ltd acquiring Swoop for $61.3 million in a deal that also involved Steamify acquiring Perth-based NBN retail provider NodeOne.