The British telecom company Vodafone has agreed on acquiring Spanish cable company ONO for over $9.5B dollars two sources with ” knowledge of the discussions” said on Friday. ONO provides telephone, television and internet to its more then 6 million users with 3.7 million services contracted. ONO was also one of the first companies to offer fiber optics in Spain offering more then 200 megabits per second which is x20 times faster then any other telecom company in Spain.
“A meeting took place yesterday between the shareholders and Vittorio Colao (Vodafone Chief Executive). The due diligence will start this weekend in order to make the offer binding,”
ONO previously refused a $7B offer from Vodafone as stock holders thought the bid was too low, over 54 percent of ONO is owned by Providence Equity Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners, CCMP Capital Advisors, and Quadrangle Capital.
To win over Ono’s shareholders and convince them to shelve the planned IPO, Vodafone would have to make an offer “substantially higher than the previous ones
Said the second person source. Over the past few years Vodafone has seen a decline in monthly subscribers in Spain as it lost more then 13% of its subscribers. According to a fact sheet from Vodafone, it has over 14m customers (32% prepaid) in Spain which is about 29% of its market share. It seems like Vodafone wants to expand its monthly internet subscribers as it already dominates mobile subscribers in Spain, by acquiring ONO the company put it self in a leading position on the Spanish market, getting closer to beat telecom giant Movistar.
