French cable group Nexans and Japanese counterpart Sumitomo Electric Industries have reached a joint venture agreement to collaborate in the fibre-optic cable business in Europe. The agreement covers the deployment of FTTx applications. Sumitomo Electric will acquire 40 percent of the Nexans subsidiary Opticable, based in Belgium. Opticable designs and manufactures fibre cables for telecommunications. The transaction, for which financial terms were not disclosed, is subject to antitrust authorities' approval and is expected to close by early 2009. The tie-up combines Nexans' cable manufacturing facilities and its sales and network engineering competences with Sumitomo's optical fibre production capacity and FTTH communications technology. Opticable has annual turnover of EUR 30-40 million and employs 120 people. Nexans' chief corporate officer for strategic operations, Pascal Portevin, said the joint venture agreement constitutes the last phase of Nexans' telecommunication strategy. The company has already divested its telecommunication copper infrastructure cable with the sale of its Santander unit.
