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Romania based Digi Communications has confirmed on Tuesday that the company has concluded a spectrum transfer agreement with Spain’s Orange and Másmóvil, to acquire their spectrum assets
In a press release, Digi, who also have operations in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Belgium, confirmed that the acquisition relates to the following frequency blocks: 2 x 10 MHz in the 1,800 MHz band, 2 x 10 MHz in the 2,100 MHz band and 20 MHz in the 3,500 MHz band.
It is noted in the company statement that the “transfer of the Spectrum Licenses and the grant of the Option are subject, among others, to the completion of the transaction between Orange and MasMovil, which requires the approval of the European Commission.”
In March last year, Orange and Másmóvil decided to merger their businesses by singing a binding agreement, in a deal worth nearly €19 billion. If it passes regulatory approval, the deal will create a market leader in the mobile and fixed broadband areas, with 20.2 million and 7.2 million customers respectively. If the deal gets the green light, both companies would co-control the two entities in a 50-50 joint venture.
The scale of the deal has drawn the attention of the European Commission, who launched an investigation into the effects on market competition in April. This has been paused by EU antitrust regulators this summer as regulators requested more information, which has sparked interest from companies such as Digi to be the beneficiary of any asset sales.
Spain has a notably difficult telecoms market, due to laws forced upon operators that drive high levels of competition, which, in turn, had led to years of brutal price wars.
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