SOUTH AMERICA – ENEL ACQUIRES 21% OF UFINET
Enel chalks up another success in South America, spending 150 million euros to acquire 21% of Ufinet International, a fibre optic network operator working in 14 South American countries. The company manages over 49,000 kilometres of fibre, including about 17,000 in metropolitan areas, and has long-term contracts worth about 700 million euros with large industrial customers, including large multinational telephone groups. It is the first time in the world that a utility company has entered into this type of arrangement. Due to the size of Ufinet International’s business operations, its business model and geographic footprint, it is a significant opportunity for the Enel Group to speed up development in the ultra-broadband area in South America. The infrastructural convergence that Enel is trying to develop in the energy sector, and its attempt to export this model to countries in which it operates, will certainly help Italy to reposition itself as a technological and innovation hub on the international scene – especially in a part of the world where the strengths of our country were traditionally considered to be in completely different industries – and could boost growth in our industrial supply chains, providing more room for development to Italian companies that did not traditionally operate in energy-related industries.
