Sparks

Cordiant Digital Infrastructure reported Q127 (three months to 30 June 2026) portfolio revenue of £106.6m, up 20.2% y-o-y on a constant currency basis, and portfolio EBITDA of £43.6m, up 2.0%. Revenue growth was supported in part by Speed Fibre’s September 2025 acquisition of the lower-margin BT Ireland wholesale business. As flagged in the FY26 annual report, the lower EBITDA growth partly reflected project revenue phasing and customer churn. Management expects momentum to build through the year as new contracts commence and it converts a growing pipeline. Over the 12 months to June, the 4.45p target dividend was 5.2x covered by EBITDA and 1.6x by AFFO after scheduled debt repayments (12 months to March 2026: 1.7x). The decline in AFFO cover reflected further scheduled repayments on Emitel’s term debt. Portfolio companies distributed over £34m to the group between July and September 2026. Group liquidity excluding DCU was £193.3m, consolidated gearing 39.8% and net leverage 4.5x, with no debt facilities maturing before June 2029.

At Emitel in Poland, the company’s largest market, revenue rose 1.5% to £36.1m and EBITDA 2.2% to £24.6m. As anticipated, growth was moderated by the expiry of certain TV broadcast contracts on MUX-8 at the end of 2025. It was supported by project revenue, radio broadcasting growth, higher tower rental income from new site entries and Emitel’s new data centre business, while cost discipline benefited the EBITDA margin. Emitel paid distributions of £15.2m in July and £13m in September. CRA revenue rose 1.4% to £25.4m but EBITDA fell 2.7% to £12.1m. This principally reflected the phasing of certain project revenue, which CRA is working to realise later in the year, together with a provision relating to a single customer account. CRA’s data centre, cloud, AI and OTT activities collectively grew 8.5%. Speed Fibre revenue rose 87.3% to £36.5m (Q126: £19.5m) and EBITDA 6.3% to £6.2m, supported by the ECL acquisition, whose integration is progressing to plan with churn better than plan. Datacenter United (DCU) revenue rose 1.2% to £9.0m and EBITDA 10.3% to £2.9m. In September, DCU signed a c 3MW, five-year high-density contract at Machelen, targeted to be ready for service in April 2027. It will be served from a 4MW liquid-cooled conversion due for completion in Q127. Hudson revenue rose 1.8% to £4.4m, but its EBITDA loss widened 8.0% to £0.7m after it ceased recognising revenue from a customer that has filed for bankruptcy. Hudson’s budget for the year already assumed early termination by this customer. BTC extended its radio broadcasting infrastructure contract with public broadcaster VRT to December 2027 and expects a longer-term extension in 2027; it paid a £0.7m dividend in July.

Cordiant reports that AI-driven demand is converting into contracted revenue across the portfolio. CRA has signed six GPU-as-a-service contracts in the year to date, worth c £6.5m of committed annual revenue, and is expanding DC Lužice from 200kW to up to 900kW to meet GPUaaS demand. Hudson signed a five-year 1.8MW contract with an AI cloud provider, helping take its sixth floor to c 83% utilisation and run-rate EBITDA significantly closer to breakeven. Revenue directly attributable to AI use cases is estimated at less than 1% of portfolio revenue in the quarter, and the company describes this demand as a new and attractive source of growth. Construction of the first phase of Prague Gateway (up to £74m) began in August 2026 under an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Skanska. Letters of intent have been signed with anchor customers, including one for up to 15MW, and CRA is pursuing a bid for the site to become an EU AI Gigafactory. Costed committed and uncommitted opportunities total at least £410m of potential growth capex, which the company says could deliver attractive double-digit IRRs. Including items still being costed, such as the Gigafactory bid, DCU’s potential development of additional data centre capacity and portfolio company bolt-on acquisitions, the pipeline could exceed £1bn. Cordiant is evaluating funding options to fund this growing pipeline. The Board says it will keep leverage prudent and weigh any portfolio-level minority equity against the resulting dilution of the company’s ownership and share of future returns.