Liberty Global has announced the acquisition of Swiss operator Sunrise Communications.
The telecoms giant acquired Sunrise for 6.8 billion Swiss francs ($7.4 billion) in a deal which will see the operator become a much stronger competitor against Swisscom.
Swisscom currently enjoys around 60 percent of the mobile marketshare in Switzerland.
Interestingly, Sunrise was set to acquire UPC – the largest cable operator in Switzerland – from Liberty Global last year for $6 billion.
The deal between Sunrise and UPC fell through after Sunrise’s largest shareholder, Freenet, disagreed with some of the terms.
Freenset has no such issues with the Liberty Global deal and has signed an agreement to sell its shares in Sunrise for the agreed price.
Mike Fries, chief executive of Liberty Global, said:
“This transaction is another significant step on our path to create fixed-mobile champions in all of our core markets, crystallising the value of our superior broadband networks and driving long-term, sustainable free cash flow growth.”
The deal is the latest in a string of mergers bringing mobile and broadband assets under the same roof.
Earlier this year, Liberty Global – owner of Virgin Media broadband – also acquired mobile operator O2 in the UK from its former owner, Telefonica.
(Photo by Sebastien Gabriel on Unsplash)
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