Sweden-based telecoms giant TeliaSonera has acquired the consumer and fixed assets of Finnish telco AinaCom for €47m (US$65m) in cash. As well as 43 employees, the deal gives the group’s local arm Sonera around 15,900 fixed broadband and 9,000 fixed…
Sweden-based telecoms giant TeliaSonera has acquired the consumer and fixed assets of Finnish telco AinaCom for €47m (US$65m) in cash.
As well as 43 employees, the deal gives the group’s local arm Sonera around 15,900 fixed broadband and 9,000 fixed voice subscriptions. It will also net roughly 29,000 cable TV and 10,000 mobile subscriptions.
Valdur Laid, who becomes head of TeliaSonera Finland on 1 April, said: “With the agreement, Sonera strengthens its position in the Hameenlinna region while also deepening its cooperation with AinaCom’s remaining B2B business.”
According to TeliaSonera, the assets it is acquiring generated around €16m in net sales and roughly €6m in EBITDA in 2013.
TeliaSonera hired Handelsbanken for financial advice.
Laid was head of the telco’s fixed-line business in Finland before plans to promote him were announced last month. His appointment is part of a far reaching reorganisation to improve overall corporate governance.
The management reshuffle was prompted by controversy over how an Uzbek 3G licence was acquired back in 2007. At the company’s request, Norton Rose Fulbright is reviewing partners and the deals that it has made across Eurasia in the past few years.
TeliaSonera CEO Johan Dennelind, who was appointed last year, said in a call with analysts in late November that it had uncovered ethical issues in Eurasia outside of Uzbekistan.
On 10 March 2014, the telco announced that a court in Kazakhstan had ruled in favour of an anti-monopoly case brought against the group by the local competition authority.
The Agency for Competition Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan (ACP) claimed its Kcell subsidiary had abused its dominant position in the country.
TeliaSonera said the court supported a fine of KZT 16,054m (US$88m), which it will seek to reduce if unsuccessful in its objections.
“The company intends to object the decision in due time and will defend its position as it does not agree with allegations,” the company said in a press statement.
