Telenor to spend USD1 billion on broadband providers

Norway’s Telenor is to invest more than USD1 billion to acquire two high-profile broadband service providers – Sweden’s second largest operator Bredbandsbolaget and Cybercity of Denmark. The state-controlled Norwegian firm will pay USD820 million for Bredbandsbolaget, which has 24% of the market with 335,000 customers, and USD236 million for the smaller Danish company, which claims 90,000 users and a market share of 8%, in a move that will strengthen its presence in the region. Commenting on the announcement, Telenor executive vice president Morten Karlsen Soerby said that: ‘Bredbandsbolaget and Cybercity are both well run companies, and they will improve Telenor’s offering to both business and residential customers in the Nordic region’. The acquisition is also expected to deliver cost savings of more than USD390 million on its exiting operations in the region.