Vodafone, the world's largest mobile telephone company, has bought mobile telephone operator MobiFon-Connex in the biggest deal Romania has seen for 15 years.
The total transaction will be worth 3.5bn dollars (2.6bn euros) and also includes the takeover of Czech operator Oskar Mobil from Canadian Telesystem International Wireless Group, the majority shareholder in the two operators. At the same time, the British operator will take on 950 million dollars of net debts.
The deal was made on Monday night, with Connex employees receiving e-mail notification of the news from Ted Lattimore, the company's president and COO.
Officials from the two companies did not give any details as to the value of the two operators in the deal individually. However, analysts believe most of the money was paid for MobiFon, which has a market value of 2-3bn dollars (1.5-2.3bn euros).
Vodafone already owned 20.1% in MobiFon before the deal, but has now acquired a further 79% in the company. The remaining 0.9% is owned by vice-premier George Copos through Dargate Ltd (Cyprus). Copos originally had nearly 2% in the company when it was established back in 1996.
"I am delighted that MobiFon and Oskar, both fast growing mobile operators, will become part of Vodafone," announced Arun Sarin, the chief executive of Vodafone. "These acquisitions will create value for our shareholders and will be good for our customers. They are also consistent with our stated strategy of increasing investment in Central and Eastern Europe," he added.
When contacted by Ziarul Financiar, Vodafone officials declined to provide any further details of the strategy for Romania. "First we need to wait until the deal is completed, which will happen in the third quarter of the year," said Ben Padovan, Vodafone's spokesman.
Will Vodafone replace the Connex brand with its own? "It is too
