Tele Columbus, Germany’s third largest cable network operator, has completed the acquisition of fourth-placed player pepcom from Star Capital for EUR608 million (USD644 million) on a cash and debt free basis. Tele Columbus says that the deal, which was announced in September, reinforces its position as one of the leading German cable players, raising the number of connected homes to 3.6 million, with complementary geographic expansion to pepcom’s key locations of Munich, Nuremberg, Leipzig and Frankfurt. pepcom provides cable TV, high speed internet and telephony access to around 580,000 unique subscribers out of approximately 790,000 connected homes. The company also holds a 70% stake in Bavarian TV and broadband cable company KMS (together with Vodafone Kabel Deutschland, which owns the remaining 30%) and in 2012 it acquired HL komm, a Leipzig-based provider of telecoms services for business customers.
Commenting on the completion of the deal, Tele Columbus CEO Ronny Verhelst said: ‘The modern networks of pepcom can be easily integrated into our current expansion concepts and allow us to rapidly implement the corresponding synergies. At the same time we look forward to strengthening our market presence, particularly in eastern Germany and Bavaria’.