Investment firm Asterion Industrial Partners has acquired a majority stake in digital infrastructure operator Irideos and plans to merge it with another Italian fiber company. Asterion this week announced it had acquired a 78.4 percent stake in Irideos S.p.A. from Fondi Italiani per le Infrastructure Sgr. (F2i). Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but reports suggest the figure was around the $400 million mark. The deal is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2022. Asterion aims to merge Irideos with Retelit, another Italian communications company, which the investment firm said would create the largest alternative wholesale access and B2B connectivity provider in Italy.
Retelit’s optical fiber infrastructure includes a network of 15,000 km of fiber and a presence in 19 data centers (18 across Italy and 1 in Innsbruck, Austria). It offers wholesale access, B2B connectivity, ICT, and colocation solutions and services. Asterion acquired the entirety of the company in December 2021 after previously acquiring a 24 percent stake in October 2020.