Orange Romania said it completed the acquisition of a majority stake (54%) in Telekom Romania Communications from OTE for EUR 295.6 million. The Romanian state holds the remaining 46 percent of the shares. The two companies will create a portfolio of converged fixed-mobile services with extended coverage for fixed internet, more varied TV content and Orange mobile connectivity.
OTE said it anticipates distributing EUR 174 million to shareholders in the form of extraordinary dividend and incremental share buybacks. The dividend distribution, subject to appropriate corporate approvals, is expected to take place this year.
New subsidiary of fixed services
Starting from 30 September, Telekom Romania Communications will be part of the Orange group, still operating as an independent company as a subsidiary of Orange Romania. Liudmila Climoc will continue her responsibilities as CEO of Orange Romania while Andrei Popovici was appointed CEO of Telekom Romania Communications on 30 September by Telekom Romania's BoD. Popovici has been working for Telekom Romania for 6 years, occupying in the last 4 years the position of executive director of local sales and customer operations.
Telekom Romania Communications will continue to provide both support and converged fixed-mobile voice services, broadband internet and television for its approximately 5 million customers. It will also manage the network infrastructure that includes up to 90,000 km of fibre optics and connects around 3 million households.
Around 916,000 customers with mobile services associated with converged contracts will have access in the coming months to mobile connectivity in the Orange network. Mobile services for these customers will now get provided by Telekom Romania Mobile through an MVNO contract with Telekom Romania Communications. The transfer between the two mobile networks will take place gradually and all changes will be communicated in advance so that this process is as simple as possible for customers, Orange said.
