Actis has agreed to sell Octotel, a South African fiber network operator, to a consortium of investors led by African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) and consisting of STOA and Thebe Investment Corp. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Actis invested in Octotel in 2020 to capitalize on the growing demand for high-speed connectivity and the rapid rise in data consumption in the country. The firm’s investment strategy focused on expanding the number of homes passed with a fiber line and driving the take-up rate on the network. This resulted in significant growth for the platform, with the number of homes passed with fiber rising from 195,000 at investment to 350,000 at present, and the number of customers connected increasing from 56,000 to 110,000 during the same time period.
Under Actis’s ownership, Octotel also achieved significant sustainability milestones, including providing free 1GB internet connections to more than 150 schools in the Western Cape, c
