KDG abandons takeover talks with Tele Columbus

German cable network operator Kabel Deutschland (KDG) has ended talks with rival cableco Tele Columbus to acquire the ailing company, Bloomberg reports, citing two people familiar with the situation. One unnamed source claims that KDG – which has also expressed an interest in buying assets from Tele Columbus’ former sister company PrimaCom – abandoned its acquisition plans after deciding that Hannover-based Tele Columbus was not worth the EUR600 million (USD780 million) its owners sought to raise. As previously reported by CommsUpdate, in January 2010 Tele Columbus was taken over by its creditors – which include York Capital, Alcentra, GoldenTree Asset Management and the Bank of Ireland – after its parent company Orion Cable sold the operation for EUR2.5 million. Control of the struggling cableco was subsequently passed to restructuring specialist Nikolaus & Co, which is seeking to restructure USD1.2 billion of debt to make it more attractive to bidders. One of the sources revealed that Tele Columbus has offered lenders equity in exchange for writing down debt to EUR623 million from EUR947 million.