Report: KDG eyes Tele Columbus, PrimaCom

German cable operator Kabel Deutschland (KDG) is interested in acquiring struggling rival Escaline-Orion, the parent company of cablecos Tele Columbus and PrimaCom, reports Financial Times Deutschland, citing an unnamed spokesperson for KDG. The report states that there are no talks underway between the two parties, though it mentioned that the country’s anti-trust agency, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) would probably view such a takeover as enhancing competition against the incumbent telco Deutsche Telekom. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, an attempt by KDG to take an 18.6% stake in PrimaCom was blocked in June 2007 by the FCO, which claimed it had not been officially notified of the deal. The purchase would have increased KDG’s holding in PrimaCom to 36.1%; it had already bought a total of 17.5% in two transactions earlier in the year. Three months later, KDG agreed to tender its stake in PrimaCom to Orion Cable Group, in a deal which saw Orion selling certain network assets to KDG, including 1.2 million subscribers in the eight federal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Bavaria.