|
Wednesday, 03 October 2007 |
|
Telekom Austria is paying €730mn for control of Belarus mobile operator MDC.
Telekom Austria today announced the completion of a deal that will see it acquire a controlling stake in Belarus’s second largest mobile operator. The €730 transaction sees TA take 70% of SB Telecom, the holding company that in turn owns 100% of MDC.
MDC has a 42% share of the Belarussian market with 2.7mn customers. Mobile penetration in Belarus had reached 66% at the end of June, 2007.
Boris Nemsic, CEO of Telekom Austria Group and CEO of it’s cellular arm, ‘mobilkom’, commented that the deal “offers us an entry to the attractive telecommunication market in Belarus while the terms of the transaction once again underline our disciplined approach to expansion. After the successful integration of the highly profitable Bulgarian market leader Mobiltel we once again engage in a similar transaction and increase our addressable market by approximately 30% to 44 million inhabitants in the countries Telekom Austria Group is present.”
Outside Austria, TA’s mobile operations footprint currently extends to Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia – not forgetting Liechtenstein. Memo to self: ‘never forget Liechtenstein’.
Jim Chalmers
|
