Fibre optic infrastructure firm CityFibre Holdings has today announced that it is strengthening its board with three strategic appointments preparing it for the next phase of its growth.
Massimo Prelz Oltramonti, Bruno Ducharme and Michael Williamson join as non-executive directors and bring a wealth of experience in capital markets, the mobile industry, private equity and venture capital. All have elected to invest in the current private funding round anchored by veteran UK private equity pioneer Jon Moulton.
They join CityFibre at a time of significant growth as it recently announced it was working with Macquarie Group to raise funds and secured a senior banking facility from Citigroup in order to develop its alternative fibre infrastructure offering to serve UK homes and businesses.
Greg Mesch, CityFibre’s CEO commented: “All three appointments bring unique benefits to CityFibre. Massimo’s experience of private equity will reinforce the company in the next phase of our growth and development, while Bruno’s expertise in the mobile industry will be of great advantage to us as this is one of the most promising markets for fibre. As our company’s business model is so capital intensive, Mike’s experience in the capital markets will be invaluable.
“As well as the wealth of experience they will bring to our team, their investment demonstrates a critical vote of confidence in the progress and direction of our business. Each will assist CityFibre in executing our plans to bring the benefits of true fibre access to local government, businesses and millions of homes throughout the UK.”
For the last 23 years, Massimo Prelz Oltramonti has been one of Europe’s leading venture capital investors in telecommunications and media companies. Since 1998, he has completed over 24 venture capital investments across Europe and the US and has been a director of several public and private companies including Jazztel, SBS, ESAT Telecom and Kabelmedia.
Bruno Ducharme has spent more than 20 years operating in senior roles in the telecommunications industry including co-founder, Chairman and CEO of TIW from 1994 to 2005. Since 2005 he has been a private investor in several telecommunications companies. He was instrumental in the buy-out of TIM Hellas in 2005 and of Vizada in 2007 and served as CEO of Vizada in 2010 until exit in 2011. He is currently chairman of Bité Group, a mobile operator in the Baltics and a non-executive director of several other companies.
Michael Williamson has extensive experience in capital markets. He is currently a senior advisor to Cairneagle Associates but spent the bulk of his career at SGWarburg (now UBS Investment Bank), and ultimately as global head of financing. He was also global head of corporate finance at Barclays Capital. Mike has a long and proven record of successfully advising CEOs, and major financial institutions and telecom companies such as Telefonica, BT Group and France Telecom.