Connecting Europe Broadband Fund (CEBF) has signed a transaction with Vahta d.o.o. (Slovenia) and 3T Cable d.o.o. (Croatia) to set up RuNe Group (Luxembourg), which will be the investment vehicle tasked with deploying high-quality fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), open-access network for residential, business and public administration in the rural areas of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar and Istria regions — the two Northwestern counties in Croatia — and to cover more than 135,000 locations.
This investment marks the inaugural project of the CEBF, a private equity fund that had its first closing in June 2018 at €420 million ($480 million) to invest in greenfield and some expansion projects in the broadband infrastructure space across underserved areas in Europe. CEBF is managed by Cube Infrastructure Managers (Cube IM) and anchored by the European Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the German KfW Bankengruppe, the Italian Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) and France’s Caisse des Dépôts et consignations (CDC).