There was a good deal of M&A news last week. It helped push the TP Stock Index European Telecoms up by 0.8 percent, still behind the EuroStoxx 50's gain of 2.1 percent, according Telecompaper. The week's absolute winner was Telekom Slovenije (+17%). Turkcell (+12%) and Turk Telekom (+8.6%) did well also, as the Turkish lira jumped. The casualties of week 3 included Italy's Go Internet (-11%), Intelsat (-9.5%) and Altice Europe (-9.2%).
The M&A news came in different flavours.
- There was some speculation around Deutsche Telekom (+1.1%), possibly looking to increase its current 12 percent BT (+2.5%) stake, now that a standstill agreement expires. Orange's (-1.5%) Spain unit could be interested in Euskaltel (+12%). The latter also set a new revenue target. TIM (-2.4%) and CK Hutchison's (+1.7%) 3 Italia were rumoured to be among the parties interested in BT's Italian assets.
- The Belgian government suggested that it could sell its majority shareholding in Proximus (-1.4%). The German government ruled out reducing its Deutsche Telekom stake to fund the roll-out of fibre networks.
- OTE (-0.9%), controlled by Deutsche Telekom, sold its Albanian subsidiary. Telefonica (+0.3%) appeared to be selling its Central America units. MegaFon (+0.4%) sold 50 percent of its Cometrica unit.
- The battle for control of TIM continued, as a new shareholder vote was called by Vivendi. It will take place 29 March. MegaFon's board recommended a buy-out offer from its controlling shareholder.
- Orange set-up a home surveillance joint venture with Groupama. Vodafone and IBM also created a new company, for the business market. IBM also made headlines in an outsourcing deal with Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems.
Network investments are business-as-usual, but some initiatives stood out.
- Iridium (-6.9%) had the final 10 satellites put into orbit for its Iridium Next network. At the same time, the Iridium Certus broadband network for maritime and other sectors went live.
- Equinix (+0.9%) planned a new data centre in Seoul.
- Play (+2.7%) laid out plans to add 2,500 base stations for its mobile network in Poland. That will allow it to end national roaming, which will lead to higher margins. Iliad's French business (Free) announced a deal with fibre operator Covage (unlisted), to add 1.4 million premises in rural areas to its marketable footprint.
New entrants
Preparing for 5G, the Belgian government was forced to postpone the long awaited 5G auction to 2020 at the earliest. It may bring along a new market entrant, much to the dismay of the current network operators, Proximus, Telenet (-2.2%) and Orange Belgium (-1.7%). In Russia, Rostelecom (+0.6%) and MegaFon decided to band together for 5G.
In the Netherlands, VodafoneZiggo, the joint venture of Vodafone (-2.3%) and Liberty Global (+6.0%), added some pricing elements to its recent wholesale offer. This may, in time, bring new competitors to the market, using VodafoneZiggo's cable network.
In Italy, another round a portfolio adjustments took place, apparently still related to last year's market entry by Iliad. TIM launched a whole range of new options and Iliad Italia expanded its offerings as well.
