Telefónica S A : £31bn Virgin Media and O2 merger given green light by competition watchdog
May 20, 2021 at 02:40 am EDT
Share
The Compeitition and Markets Authority (CMA) has given its final approval the merger of telecoms giants Virgin Media and O2, which will value the combined company at £32bn.
The 50:50 joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefonica to combine home broadband and content provider Virgin Media and mobile phone network O2 and take in £11bn in revenue.
The deal was announced in May last year.
Read more: Competition watchdog clears £31bn O2-Virgin Media merger
The watchdog had raised concerns that following the merger the combined company could raise prices or reduce the quality of these services or block access altogether.
However, the CMA last month said its inquiry had provisionally concluded that the deal was unlikely to lead to a substantial lessening of competition.
Today the £31bn gets final approval.
“After looking closely at the deal, we are reassured that competition amongst mobile communications providers will remain strong and it is therefore unlikely that the merger would lead to higher prices or lower quality services,” said panel inquiry chair Martin Coleman from the Competition and Markets Authority
The approval was welcomed by the top bosses of the respective telecoms giants.
Mike Fries, chief executive of Liberty Global, and José Maria Alvarez-Pallete, CEO of Telefonica, commented: “This is a watershed moment in the history of telecommunications in the UK as we are now cleared to bring real choice where it hasn’t existed before, while investing in fibre and 5G that the UK needs to thrive. We thank the CMA for conducting a thorough and efficient review.
The post £31bn Virgin Media and O2 merger given final green light by UK competition watchdog appeared first on CityAM.
Telefonica S.A. is Spain's leading telecommunications operator. The group's activity is organized around 3 areas:
- mobile telephony services: 292.2 million subscribers at the end of 2022;
- fixed telecommunications services: fixed telephony (27.9 million telephone lines installed at the end of 2022), Internet access (26.3 million ADSL lines), pay-TV (10.6 million subscribers), etc. ;
- business telecommunications services: mobile telephony (22.3 million customers by the end of 2022) and fixed-line telecommunications (3.7 million lines installed).
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Spain (31.2%), Brazil (22.2%), Latin America (22.8%), Germany (20.6%) and other (3.2%).