BC Partners will acquire Swedish Com Hem from current owners Carlyle and Providence, the buy-side announced. Financial details were not disclosed, but according to media reports sellers Carlyle and Providence will receive around E1.8bn (US$ 2.6bn) for…
BC Partners will acquire Swedish Com Hem from current owners Carlyle and Providence, the buy-side announced. Financial details were not disclosed, but according to media reports sellers Carlyle and Providence will receive around E1.8bn (US$ 2.6bn) for the Swedish cableco.
BC Partners won the auction over Cinven, which was the only other bidder left after Nordic Capital’s recent drop out of the process.
UBS and Goldman Sachs were financial advisors for BC Partners and Dickson Minto and Lindahl acted as legal advisors. BC Partners was financed by Goldman Sachs. Mannheimer Swartling and Latham & Watkins were the legal advisors to the vendors.
Tomas Franzen, CEO at Com Hem, said: “BC Partners has an international telecom expertise and knows our business very well. I am convinced that we, with BC Partners as our new owner, will further develop our already strong position on the Swedish market”.
The transaction requires antirust approval by the European Commission, and is expected to close in September.
Carlyle and Providence acquired Com Hem from private equity investors EQT in 2006 and, in the same year, they acquired UPC, which was integrated with Com Hem. Under the ownership of Carlyle and Providence, the company has invested nearly SEK 4 billion on developing the company, upgrading the network and developing new services such as TV-On-Demand and broadband up to 200 Mbit/s.
