The owners of Dutch cable operator Casema are looking at selling, refinancing or listing the company on the stock market, Het Financieele Dagblad reports without naming sources. With 1.3 million subscribers, Casema is the second-largest cable operator in the Netherlands. The owners include the investment groups Carlyle (40%), Providence (40%) and GMT Communications Partners (20%), which acquired the company in 2002 from France Telecom for EUR 665 million. Sources tell the paper that the companies hope to sell Casema for three times as much, or around EUR 2 billion. That's equal to around 11-12 times EBITA, a multiple used in similar transactions in the European cable industry in recent months. In an internal e-mail to staff, Casema CEO Jos Molenkamp said the owners are considering their position now that the company's operations are running smoothly, following the launch of digital TV and telephony. A spokesman for Casema told Telecompaper that the shareholders are initially looking at refinancing the company. There are no talks underway to sell the company to another party.
