BERN, Switzerland-Swisscom took a significant step in becoming a major service provider in Europe by acquiring a 58-percent stake in Germany’s No. 3 mobile communications provider, Debitel AG, for $1.62 billion, said Swisscom.
The previous majority shareholders-Debis and Metro-each will reduce their share to 10 percent after selling to Swisscom 32.4 percent and 25.6 percent, respectively, of their stake in Debitel.
Swisscom is paying Debitel $32.54 per share, and will finance the deal with cash and debt. It will use $1.01 billion from its cash reserves to pay for the first part of the acquisition, and the rest will be financed by either a Eurobond or on Swiss capital markets, said David Schnell, Swisscom’s finance chief.
Debitel is Europe’s largest network-independent telephone company with approximately 3.7 million customers. The company is a mobile phone reseller.
With the acquisition, Swisscom will double its customer base to around 7 million.
“The proportion of revenues generated outside our home market will increase considerably as a result of this acquisition. This is a clear signal that we want to achieve future growth abroad and that we will do so,” said Schnell.
In addition to Germany, Debitel also is present in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, France and Slovenia, while Swisscom’s focus is on Austria, France and Italy.
The two companies hope to offer Internet services in addition to mobile communications services. In the Internet business alone, Swisscom said it will have access to more than 100,000 new customers.
