EQT and Omers offer to lift funding for Deutsche Glasfaser to €5bn
Source · Telecoms desk
— Summary
Private capital firm EQT and Canadian pension fund Omers have offered to increase their investment in German broadband provider Deutsche Glasfaser to nearly €5bn, to avoid losing control of the heavily indebted business to its lenders. The two investors have already put €4bn into Glasfaser; they would add about €850mn in preferred equity, with lenders injecting €400mn of new super-senior debt, according to four people familiar with the matter. They were forced to act after failing to find another backer to take a stake in the group, which carries over €7bn of gross debt.
EQT and Omers bought Glasfaser from KKR in 2020 for €2.8bn, with EQT taking 51% and Omers the rest. A €1.7bn refinancing proposed in December was rejected by creditors, who had offered to take over the company. The refinancing would shift more debt to the holding-company level. Founded in 2011, Glasfaser is Germany's second-largest fibre broadband provider and serves more than 2.6mn homes, but has struggled to attract customers away from rivals, cutting its coverage goal from 6mn homes to 3.2mn by 2032.
Both investors have faced pain elsewhere: EQT handed its French nursing-home group Colisée to lenders last year over a €1.8bn debt pile, and Omers wrote off its 31% stake in UK's Thames Water in 2024. "A big cleansing moment for the company, but they are not out of the woods yet", said James Ratzer of New Street Research. Source: Financial Times, 21 April 2026, Kieran Smith, Daniel Thomas and Ivan Levingston.
The story in one line. Rather than lose Germany’s #2 fibre broadband operator to its creditors, EQT and Omers will inject another ~€850mn of equity on top of the €4bn already committed, cutting a fresh refinancing deal with lenders.
Key numbers
~€5bn total equity from EQT and Omers after the new injection
~€850mn of new preferred equity from the sponsors
€400mn of new super-senior debt from lenders
€7bn+ Glasfaser’s gross debt
€1.7bn previous refinancing proposal, rejected in December by creditors
€2.8bn paid by EQT (51%) and Omers for Glasfaser when bought from KKR in 2020
2.6mn homes currently served; coverage target cut from 6mn to 3.2mn by 2032
€1.8bn debt pile at EQT’s French nursing-home group Colisée, handed to lenders in 2025
31% Omers stake in UK’s Thames Water, fully written off in 2024
Why it matters
Fibre-to-the-home build-outs across Europe have been one of the biggest private-capital bets of the past decade, but execution has been brutal: infrastructure funds borrowed heavily to build, then found they couldn’t recruit retail subscribers fast enough to service that debt. Glasfaser has had to halve its coverage goal. The new deal shows lenders have leverage - they rejected an earlier refinancing and offered to take control - but the sponsors still prefer equity dilution to handing over the keys.
Takeaway
This refinancing is the sponsor-friendly outcome: EQT and Omers keep control, lenders get more super-senior protection, and the holdco takes on more of the debt. But €7bn of debt is only sustainable if Glasfaser can accelerate customer acquisition or consolidate the fragmented German fibre market. The broader message: infrastructure private equity has lost its “can’t-lose” halo, as EQT’s Colisée and Omers’s Thames Water experiences show.
Source: Financial Times, 21 April 2026, Kieran Smith, Daniel Thomas and Ivan Levingston.