The Regulatory Authority of Bermuda (RAB) has approved Digicel’s acquisition of Bermuda Telephone Company (BTC) with conditions after a three-month review.
In a statement on its website, the regulator said that it imposed a number of remedies to…
The Regulatory Authority of Bermuda (RAB) has approved Digicel’s acquisition of Bermuda Telephone Company (BTC) with conditions after a three-month review.
In a statement on its website, the regulator said that it imposed a number of remedies to address competition concerns, including the need to obtain written approval from the authority for the transfer of any ownership right or interest in or commercial activity by the Digicel-BTC affiliate to any of the other Digicel subsidiaries.
“After a nearly three-month long review, which included a request for public comment, the merger was approved subject to certain conditions designed to promote innovation and competition in the Bermuda electronic communications market,” the regulator said.
Caribbean-focused telco Digicel Group agreed to acquire BTC in January for an undisclosed amount.
The deal is aimed at complementing Digicel’s mobile offering with BTC’s fixed voice and internet services.
The BTC sale came only a few months after Canadian investment group Barrie Holdings bought the operator from local telco group KeyTech for BMD$30m (US$30m). KeyTech was reportedly required to divest the asset to be able to acquire a controlling interest in rival CableVision.
Commenting on the rationale behind the Digicel deal, Barrie Holdings director Roy Graydon, who became BTC executive chairman following the sale, told TelecomFinance: “The short answer is that they made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. But the longer answer is that we recognized from the outset that if we could partner with some of the industry participants on the island, we could effect change much faster. It just happened that the party most interested in engaging with us in that dialogue was many times our size, and thus they became the natural ‘surviving company’.”
Rival Cell One already provides mobile, fixed-line and internet services.
Founded in 2001, Bermuda-incorporated Digicel Group operates in 32 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Asia Pacific, providing services to about 13 million subscribers.
Last year, the company continued its aggressive expansion strategy, buying Jamaican triple-play operator Telstar, WIV Cable TV in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and SAT Telecommunications, which provides TV, telephony and broadband internet services to customers in Dominica.
