News
After mulling over its options at the start of the year, Deutsche Telekom is now seeking to offload the Dutch unit quickly to help fund its German fibre rollout
Back in January, Dutch media reported that Deutsche Telekom (DT) was looking for potential buyers for its Dutch unit, T-Mobile Netherlands, hoping to raise €5–$6 billion.
DT had previously looked to sell the unit back in 2015 before changing its mind, instead merging it with Tele2 AB’s operations in 2019. Since then, however Tele2 has indicated that it is looking to offload its 25% in T-Mobile Netherlands, pulling back to focus on its core Nordic and Baltic markets.
But despite this merger in 2019, talks of a sale were still close at hand, with private equity firm EQT noted as a potential buyer in November of the same year.
Now, it seems that a sale will finally be going ahead, with sources suggesting that DT could value the unit at around €4.5 billion ($5.3 billion). According to Bloomberg’s sources, potential buyers include Apax Partners, Apollo Global Management Inc., BC Partners, Providence Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus, with whom discussions are already taking place.
According to sources, initial bids must be submitted by the end of July.
It should be noted that KPN and Vodafone Ziggo, the other two large players in the Netherlands’ mobile space, would be unlikely to participate in a potential sale due to regulatory concerns.
For Deutsche Telekom, the potential sale should go some way to reducing its roughly €130 billion debt, as well as paying for the intensification of the company’s fibre rollout in its home market of Germany.
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