OSLO: TeliaSonera AB won antitrust approval to buy Tele2 AB’s telecommunications assets in Norway, reducing the number of mobile networks in the country and challenging market leader Telenor ASA.
TeliaSonera, based in Stockholm, must sell Tele2’s wireless unit Network Norway to ICE and reach a roaming agreement with the same competitor to receive the clearance, the Norwegian Competition Authority said Thursday. Bloomberg News reported the approval late Wednesday.
Tele2 shares rose to a 20-month high in Stockholm trading. Norway, a country of 5.2 million people, became the most recent market in Europe to see consolidation of four wireless networks into three, after Austria, Ireland and Germany. The final price of the deal will be lowered to 4.5 billion Swedish kronor ($540 million) from 5.1 billion kronor because of the concessions and is expected to be completed within two weeks, according to the companies.
Tele2’s Norwegian operations became a takeover target after the company lost out in a 2013 spectrum auction to ICE, the carrier owned by Ukrainian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik. TeliaSonera is expected to have just under 40 percent mobile-market share in Norway after the transaction, with projected synergies worth at least 800 million kronor a year starting in 2017, Chief Executive Officer Johan Dennelind said.
“We are full speed ahead already in building an alternative to Telenor in Norway, combining two good companies to create a great company,” Dennelind said in a phone interview.
Tele2 said it will propose an extra dividend of 4.5 billion kronor because of the divestment.
The shares jumped as much as 7.3 percent to 99.95 kronor, the highest price since May 2013, and traded up 6.3 percent as of 3:13 p.m. in Stockholm. TeliaSonera gained 1 percent to 52.40 kronor.
Danish operator TDC A/S took part in the consolidation of the Nordic telecommunications market with the acquisition of Norwegian cable provider Get AS for 13.8 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.8 billion) in October. The Copenhagen-based carrier said it had held acquisition talks with Swedish cable and broadband provider Com Hem Holding AB.
TDC isn’t currently in talks with Com Hem, although the company is “strategically interesting,” Chief Financial Officer Pernille Erenbjerg said Thursday by phone.
Com Hem rose as much as 5.3 percent to 68.05 kronor, the highest level since its Stockholm stock-market debut in June.
