Belgacom Buys Telcos in Luxembourg & Liechtenstein

Belgium based, Belgacom has announced that it is buying Tele2 Luxembourg, the second mobile operator in Luxembourg operating under the brand name "Tango". The current owner is Sweden based Tele2.

Tele2 Luxembourg currently provides mobile, fixed voice and DSL services in Luxembourg. Belgacom says that it intends to maintain its residential mobile offering under the Tango brand and further penetrate the corporate market by leveraging its existing ICT business through Telindus Luxembourg.

Tele2 Luxembourg is a well established mobile network operator with a fixed line presence. With 238,000 mobile customers and 39% share of the mobile market, Tele2 is the second largest mobile player in Luxembourg. It also serves 26,000 fixed voice and 10,000 broadband customers in Luxembourg. As part of the transaction, Belgacom also acquires Tele2�'s Liechtenstein fixed and mobile operations.

Belgacom is acquiring all shares of Tele2 Luxembourg for EUR 207 million (US$322.5 million) on a debt and cash free basis. Given Belgacom�'s operations in Belgium and its existing presence in Luxembourg, it is confident to achieve synergies of at least EUR 25 million. Tele2 Luxembourg reported EUR 31 million EBITDA in 2007, and EUR 6.15 million for the first quarter of 2008.

Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, President and CEO of Tele2, comments: "Tele2 has for several years operated very successful infrastructure based businesses in both Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. However, as an important step in our realignment process, Tele2 has decided to take advantage of attractive pricing on the two assets in order to realize value."

Posted to the site on 26th June 2008