Deutsche Giga Access, Essen (Germany)

Broadband communications

Key facts at a glance

  • Development of a market participant with relevant importance
  • Focus on internet access via FTTH (fibre optics directly to individual buildings)
  • Investment in the expansion of the company’s own fibre-optic network

Revenues in €mn

 

5

 

2019

 

4

 

2020

 

4

 

2021
Investment by
DBAG Fund VIII
€47.5mn
DBAG's interest
€10.9mn
Management Buyout

Majority investment of DBAG Fund VIII
First invested
September 2020

As of 31 December 2022

 

Profile

Deutsche Giga Access (DGA) acts as a holding company to control and acquire regional fibre network operators. DGA acts as network owner and general contractor for the planning, construction and operation of passive and active infrastructure, which can also be leased by other service providers (open access model).DGA invests in the own-account roll-out of fibre broadband infrastructure in Germany. Where a self-supported roll-out does not make sense, it uses regional funding programmes.

DGA pursues two main business models: on the one hand, it acquires and develops regional network operators with their own network and end-customer business; on the other hand, it offers its network infrastructure to third parties who want to market their products to end customers via the DGA networks. 

Germany is lagging significantly behind as regards the expansion of FTTH networks. By investing in DGA, we aim to participate in what we see as an inevitable catching-up process and the associated attractive growth rates.

Ragnar Geerdts
Managing Director

31

per cent

increase of accessible households from 2020 to the end of 2021

Potential for development

Following the acquisition of the Northern Access nucleus, a holding company has been created to structure organic and inorganic growth and will comprise around 60,000 "Homes Passed" by the end of 2022. The aim is to drive forward the expansion of Internet access via FttH (fiber-to-the-home) and to help shape the consolidation of the highly fragmented market for Internet service providers in Germany by acquiring other regional providers in order to build up a market player of relevant significance.

Contact

Ragnar Geerdts
Ragnar Geerdts
Ragnar Geerdts
+49 69 95787-172

Ragnar Geerdts

Managing Director

Ragnar Geerdts joined Deutsche Beteiligungs AG in 2012 and became a Managing Director in 2017.

Ragnar Geerdts has over eleven years of experience in private equity. He has extensive knowledge of the automotive supplier and telecommunications industries and in mechanical and plant engineering. He was involved in numerous investments and disinvestments and led the investment process in in-tech, vitronet, netzkontor, von Poll Immobilien, BTV Multimedia, Solvares, DING and DGA. In these companies he sits on the advisory councils. Before joining Deutsche Beteiligungs AG Ragnar Geerdts worked in the area of M&A at Bayer AG and at Deutsche Post AG.

He holds a degree in Business Administration from Freie Universität Berlin, and also studied at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.