In a week of high stock market volatility, the news flow from the telecom services sector was relatively light. KCom, the local British incumbent accepted a higher takeover offer, Tele2 signed a network sharing deal for the Baltics and BT signed a deal with Cellnex. Polish shares did especially well in week 23. Our index ended the week up 1.2 percent, behind the EuroStoxx 50's 3.0 percent gain.
- M&A. KCom (+13% for the week), the incumbent in the Hull area, accepted a takeover bid from a Macquarie fund. It surpassed the previous offer from USSL by 9p at 108 p/share, for a total amount of GBP 563 million in cash. KCom closed the week at 110p, suggesting that investors are betting on a bidding war of sorts. Finnish incumbent DNA (+0.2%) acquired a network operator in Tampere and TIM (+1.8%) sold its media broadcast unit Persidera, a 70/30 joint venture with Gedi Gruppo Editoriale. The proposed takeover of UPC Switzerland by Sunrise hit two barriers, one from the regulator moving its investigation to the next (in-depth) phase, the other from the 30-percent shareholder Freenet, reluctant to join in a rights issue.
- Partnerships. Tele2 (unchanged) signed a deal with Bite (owned by Providence) in Latvia and Lithuania. The two will establish national joint ventures to share most mobile network elements. BT (+6.9%) partnered with Cellnex (+0.6%), granting the latter the right to operate and market 220 high towers in the UK. BT also announced a cost savings measure, aimed at reducing the UK office space from 300 to just 30 buildings.
- Auction. In Norway, a spectrum auction for the 700 MHz and 2.1 GHz bands was completed, leaving the Ice Group the biggest winner with spectrum in both bands. Telia (+2.3%) and Telenor (+2.9%) acquired 700-band spectrum only.
- Poland. Polish shares did exceptionally well last week. Orange Poland was up 23 percent, Play gained 21 percent and Cyfroway Polsat 8.6 percent. Only Netia (-2.7%), controlled by Cyfrowy Polsat, was down.
Stocks that have been the subject of takeovers (pending approval and closing) or takeover speculation are obviously doing quite well (in alphabetical order): DNA (+23%), Forthnet (+47%), Go Internet (+30%), KCom (+51%), KPN (+11%), Manx Telecom (+39%), NextGenTel (+18%) and the Zayo Group (+43%).
