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Brussels expected to approve Belgian takeover deal in coming days.
The European Commission is set to approve Liberty Global’s acquisition of Base in the coming days, it emerged this week.
Unnamed sources cited by Reuters said the Commission will green light the deal after Liberty Global committed to divesting assets to another market player, thereby maintaining competition.
The Commission is due to brief national competition authorities on the case on Thursday and will publish its approval of the merger shortly afterwards, the newswire said.
Liberty Global agreed to buy Belgian mobile operator Base for €1.33 billion from KPN in April with a view to merging it with its Telenet cable provider.
Since then it has worked hard to persuade Brussels that the deal will not harm competition. In November it agreed to sell Base’s JIM Mobile and Mobile Vikings branded customers to Flemish TV and radio station operator Medialaan, provided it secures European Commission approval for the takeover. As a result, Medialaan will become a full MVNO on Base’s network.
The Commission has until March to rule on the case.
All eyes are on the Commission, since this is the first telecoms M&A ruling it will make since standing in the way of Telenor and TeliaSonera’s Denmark merger plan in September.
