TDC looking for Swedish acquisitions

Danish telecoms group TDC is hunting acquisitions in Sweden as part of a strategy to offset falling fixed line and mobile revenues in its domestic market, its CEO Carsten Dilling has told Reuters. Having last month completed the sale of the bulk of its Finnish division (while continuing to serve pan-Nordic business customers in Finland via a partnership agreement with the buyer, Finnish telco DNA), Dilling said that TDC’s after-tax divestment profit of around DKK700 million (USD128 million) could now be reinvested. The CEO stated: ‘Following our divestment of TDC Finland we are looking into small- or mid-size consolidation opportunities in Sweden. The profit from the sales has been earmarked for this,’ while adding that the potential targets could be in telecoms or other sectors. TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database says that business-focused telco TDC Sweden operates as a fixed and mobile voice/data service provider, including mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) services over the Tele2 Sweden network, while it also owns nationwide fixed-wireless (3.7GHz) spectrum, and has a fibre infrastructure access agreement with Swedish open access network operator Zitius (although the latter was recently bought out by TeliaSonera). GlobalComms adds that TDC Sweden sold its retail/consumer telephony/broadband customer base to fellow Swedish altnet/reseller AllTele in December 2007 to concentrate on its enterprise clients. The TDC CEO has not ruled out a merger of the remaining Swedish operation with a larger rival such as TeliaSonera.