Manchester-headquartered TalkTalk has announced it has completed the sale of its telecoms business FibreNation.
In January, the communications giant announced it had struck a £200m deal with London-based telecoms firm CityFibre to sell its business.
Negotiations for the deal began last year but were put on hold during the general election, after the Labour Party pledged to nationalise BT’s broadband infrastructure arm in its manifesto.
TalkTalk chief executive Tristia Harrison said the sale of FibreNation to CityFibre enables the firm to continue its strategy to “accelerate TalkTalk's fibre growth for our residential and business customers, thereby delivering a superior customer experience at an affordable price".
FibreNation, founded in 2018, was launched to deploy full-fibre infrastructure and services across the city of York, with around 49,000 premises currently accessing gigabit speed broadband services from TalkTalk.
The acquisition will see TalkTalk become a major wholesale customer of CityFibre’s £4bn investment programme across both consumer and business markets.
Ms Harrison said: "Now more than ever, reliable and affordable connectivity should be available to every single home in Britain, and this agreement shows that a full fibre future can be delivered through competition and investment by many players.
“CityFibre's ambitions to take forward our hard work with FibreNation over the last five years, should take us a step closer to that fully connected Britain.”
The announcement comes alongside the appointment of former BT Wholesale CEO Paul Reynolds - an architect of the formation of Openreach - as an independent non-executive director.
Mr Reynolds will join the board on April 1.
Ms Harrison said: "As a provider of critical national infrastructure, we are more aware than ever of our essential role providing affordable connectivity to the nation.
“During Paul's three decades in telecoms, he has pioneered some major developments in industry structure both at BT where he laid the groundwork for Openreach, and internationally too.”
She added: “We're looking forward to drawing on that expertise to help shape the future of TalkTalk.
“As we continue to focus our future firmly on full-fibre, I have asked Paul to chair our FTTP Committee to oversee our drive to connect customers across the UK to the most reliable and fast broadband as soon as possible.”
