Iliad founder Niel buys Ukraine’s third-largest mobile provider By Reuters

By Gianluca Lo Nostro

(Reuters) – A consortium of buyers led by French billionaire Xavier Niel has closed the transaction to amass and merge Ukrainian cell operator Lifecell with service supplier Datagroup-Volia, the funding companies concerned within the deal stated on Monday.

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT

Lifecell is Ukraine’s third-largest cell supplier after VEON (NASDAQ:)’s Kyivstar and Vodafone (NASDAQ:). The operator will merge with Datagroup-Volia, a fixed-telecom and pay-TV agency.

Lifecell was totally owned by Turkcell. In April, a Kyiv court docket cleared the trail for the acquisition by lifting the seizure of Lifecell’s shares belonging to sanctioned Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, who held roughly a 20% stake by way of LetterOne.

KEY QUOTE

“The closing of this landmark transaction will function a sign to others that Ukraine presents compelling alternatives, and that the time to speculate is now,” Niel stated in a press release.

BY THE NUMBERS

The deal is price at the very least $524.3 million, Turkcell stated on Monday. The European Financial institution for Reconstruction and Growth (EBRD) and the Worldwide Finance Company will present $435 million in loans, the companies added.

The brand new platform is predicted to rack up round 10 million cell customers, and greater than 4 million individuals related through fixed-access community.

CONTEXT

NJJ Holding, the main investor alongside Horizon Capital, is one among Niel’s funding autos. It’s the sole proprietor of Atlas (NYSE:) Investissement, which can also be the highest shareholder of telecoms group Millicom.

Iliad, on the core of Niel’s overarching telco busines, won’t be the mum or dad firm of this new Ukrainian supplier, its CEO Thomas Reynaud instructed Reuters in August.

WHAT’S NEXT

The worldwide participant rising from this merger could enhance competitors amongst convergent operators in Ukraine’s telecoms triopoly, Kyivstar’s CEO instructed Reuters on Thursday whereas the struggle with Russia weighs on cell suppliers’ resiliency.