Hogan Lovells advises UBS Asset Management and Northern Fiber Holding on acquisition of sewikom

Hogan Lovells advises UBS Asset Management and Northern Fiber Holding on acquisition of sewikom

Press releases | 09 November 2022

Led by Frankfurt partners Alexander Stefan Rieger and Jörg Herwig, global law firm Hogan Lovells has advised investment manager UBS Asset Management Real Estate & Private Markets (UBS) and Northern Fiber Holding GmbH (NFH) on the acquisition of German fibre network operator sewikom GmbH.

Northern Fiber Holding is a portfolio company of UBS, which already in August 2021 had acquired all shares in the fibre-to-the-home business Lünecom through Northern Fiber Holding (advised by Hogan Lovells). Now UBS is investing in sewikom, which will also become a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern Fiber Holding. In future, the competences of both fibre-to-the-home businesses will be bundled under a joint umbrella.

The operator of fibre optic networks and provider of telecommunications solutions sewikom is active in the region of North Rhine Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Hesse. Lünecom is operating in northern Germany with the aim of supplying urban and rural areas with high-performance fibre optic networks. With the help of UBS, Northern Fiber Holding intends to invest one billion Euros in the further network expansion provided by Lünecom and sewikom and strengthen its position as an increasing player in the German fibre-to-the-home market.

Alexander Stefan Rieger added:

"We are currently seeing the first signs of the upcoming consolidation wave in the German fibre market and we are delighted to support UBS and Northern Fiber Holding as they continue to build their German fibre platform."

Hogan Lovells comprehensively advised UBS and Northern Fiber Holding on all legal aspects of this transaction.

Hogan Lovells Team for UBS and Northern Fiber Holding GmbH

Dr Alexander Stefan Rieger (Partner), Johannes Groß (Senior Associate), Pascal Wagenführ, Julian Schmidt, Camilla Fröhlich, Dr Joscha Müller (Associates), (all Infrastructure M&A, Frankfurt);

Dr Jörg Herwig (Partner), Alexandra Willm (Senior Associate), (all Private Equity, Frankfurt);

Dr Mathias Schönhaus (Partner, Tax, Dusseldorf);

Dr Carla Luh (Partner), Marco Weibrecht (Senior Associate), Tobias Ulbrich, Ilyas Maung (Associates) (all Infrastructure Finance, Hamburg);

Dr Sabrina Gäbeler (Counsel), Stefan Richter (Counsel), Dr Charlotte Baecker (Associate) (all Employment, Dusseldorf/ Frankfurt);

Prof Dr Fabian Pfuhl (Counsel), Anne Schmitt (Senior Associate) (both Data Privacy, Frankfurt);

Dr Thomas Frank (Senior Associate, Pensions, Munich).