The European Commission approved the acquisition by Vodafone of 76.48 percent stake in Kabel Deutschland, the largest cable television operator in Germany for €7.7 billion ($10.4 billion).
“The Commission’s investigation confirmed that the activities of the merging parties were mainly complementary. While Kabel Deutschland primarily offers cable TV, fixed line telephony and Internet access services, Vodafone’s core business consists of mobile telephony services,” the EU’s executive said in a statement.
According to Bloomberg, Germany is the largest market of Vodafone, with 18 percent of British company’s annual sales.
Monday, Vodafone announced that it has secured a 76.48 percent stake in Kabel Deutschland. The offer of Vodafone, the second largest telecom operator in the world, was €87 per share for Kabel Deutschland, which included the payment of a dividend of €2.50.
Vodafone wanted to acquire Kabel Deutschland in Germany to offer more competitive packages of television, fixed telephony and broadband internet services to its current customers in the mobile segment.
After the merging of the two companies, the resulting group will have revenues of €11.5 billion in Germany, 32.4 million customers in the mobile segment, five million customers for broadband services and 7.6 million TV customers.
The group will offer the so-called “quad-play” services which include mobile and fixed telephony and also TV and Internet access. As customers want to watch TV and videos on their computers, mobile phones and tablets, the big players in the mobile area can offer now Internet at higher speed than traditional telecom companies.
European telecommunications companies began to divide the networks in an attempt to keep costs under control a amid an economic slowdown. Earlier this year, Vodafone announced a similar agreement with Telefonica SA in Spain.
Vodafone has 34 million users in Germany and is one of the largest mobile telecom group in the world by revenue with approximately 403 million customers worldwide as of December 31, 2012. The company has equity interests in 30 countries across five continents and over 50 partner networks worldwide.
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