Sunday, December 27, 2020

Week 52 in Telecoms, Internet, Media

Corporate

  • Vodafone:
    • Terminates discussions with STC over a sale of 55% stake in Vodafone Eqypt [see 200129]
    • Closes merger of Vodafone GR's towers assets with Wind Hellas towers to form Vantage Towers Greece (Vodafone 62%, Crystal Almond 38%), call option until 211231 to buy out Crystal Almond for EUR 288m cash by 200630, 5% more by 211231, to be triggered by Vantage Towers IPO announcement
    • To buy out minority shareholders from KDG (17.1%), 103 EUR/share, stake to rise to 93.8%, total cost EUR 1.557b (2.119b for 100%) [see 130624]
  • Liberty Global: To be removed from Nasdaq-100 index 201221
  • Telenet: Liberty Global changes chain of control (transfers Binan shares to LG Broadband, transfers to UnitedGlobalCom, transfers to LG Holding); after transaction: Binan owns 66,342,037 shares (58.28% of votes), Telenet owns 4,598,558 shares (4.04% of shares)
  • Tele Columbus: Offer from Kublai (= Morgan Stanley Infrastructure), 3.25 EUR/share = EUR 400m; shareholders United Internet, Rocket Internet support, to close 21Q2; proposes capital increase EUR 475m for fiber roll-out (EGM 210120, Kublai to take part for EUR 75m, United Internet pro rata); to invest EUR 2b over 10 yr in fiber (2m HP by 2030), 1&1 Drillisch to be RSP on fiber network
  • Play: Iliad launches squeeze-out procedure for remaining 3.3% (8,494,848 shares)
  • BT: Openreach CEO Clive Selley positive on selling minority stake to investor
  • Cyfrowy Polsat: To acquire 114,173,459 Netia shares (34.02%) at 4.80 PLN/share, subscription period 210115 - 210226 (current holding 221,404,885 shares = 65.98%)
  • Netia: Rumor: to acquire several ISPs
  • Euskaltel: Expansion: 3 bidders for max 49% in fiber JV: Fiera Capital, First Sentier Investors, Infravia Capital Partners
  • Viasat: Acquires RigNet, $222m in shares
  • AT&T:
    • NYPost: may cancel DirecTV auction if offers don't improve
    • WarnerMedia acquires You.i TV (cross-platform development tools for TV and media, delivers video apps across mobile, tablet, game consoles, streaming devices, STBs, Smart TVs using a single codebase)
  • MGM (Anchorage Capital): WSJ: considers sale, valuation $5.5b
  • IAC: Plans to spin off Vimeo as listed company 21Q2
  • Tidal: Bloomberg: Square (Jack Dorsey) interested
  • ByteDance: Rumor: interested in CMGE Technology (mobile games), to acquire 27.6% stake (or part) from Fairview Ridge Investment, 4-5 HKD/share (30-60% premium)

Networks

FTTH

    • Full Fibre raises funds from Basalt Infrastructure Partners to expand FTTP (rural, semi-urban; OA via wholesale arm iNeedFibre) to 500k premises by 2025
    • Wildanet raises GBP 50m from Gresham House British Strategic Investment Infrastructure Fund for FTTP investment in Cornwall [see 201012]

5G

LEO

  • BNA (DE) provides temporary (1 yr) spectrum license to Starlink (SpaceX)
  • ACMA (Australia) provides mmWave spectrum (26, 28 GHz) to SpaceX Starlink, OneWeb, New Skies Satellite/SES, O3b/SES, Inmarsat, Viasat, Telstra, Optus, Vocus, Nokia, NBN, Opticomm, other
  • EC orders study (EUR 7m) to design, develop & launch European-owned space-based communication system (LEO, BBoS) from Airbus, Arianespace, Eutelsat, Hispasat, OHB, Orange, SES, Telespazio, Thales Alenia Space

Services

Content

Streaming

  • Samsung TV Plus (free OTT TV, 742 channels) expands to 12 countries (60m installed base, 15m active users): US, Canada, Australia, UK, FR, DE, CH, AT, IT, ES, S Korea, Brazil; plans expansion 2021 to Mexico, India, Sweden, more European countries

Web applications

Regulatory

TIM: AGCM starts antitrust investigation of FiberCop (TIM 58%, KKR 37.5%, Fastweb 4.5%)

Spectrum

  • AKOS (Slovenia) plans 5G spectrum auction 2021, combined starting prices EUR 69m
  • ACMA (Australia) awards 5G mmWave (26 GHz (24.7-25.1) & 28 GHz (27.5-29.5) bands) licenses to 15: MarchNet, Dreamtilt, Field Solutions Group, Opticomm, Nokia, NBN Co, Optus, Telstra, Vocus, Starlink (SpaceX), WorldVu (One Web), Inmarsat, Viasat, O3B/SES, New Skies Satellites/SES

Government funding

Other

  • ACM (NL) Telecommonitor 20Q3: Mobile: 4G data traffic 254m GB (+20% qoq), 10.3b min, 617m SMS; Fixed: 1.94b min over BB, 263m min over PSTN
  • DNA (Telenor): Publishes Technology Trends for 2021 guide: 17 trends



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