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Spanish operator had agreed to acquire 50.01% of YouMobile, but walks way after due diligence.
Masmovil this week backtracked on a plan to buy a controlling stake in mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) YouMobile, having conducted due diligence on the business.
The telco, which declared itself to be Spain’s fourth integrated operator last summer, agreed to pay €1.25 million for 50.01% of YouMobile in September.
However, the deal has now fallen apart.
"Taking into account both the information gathered from…ongoing due diligence, as well as the lack of agreement between the parties on key economic aspects of the deal, Masmovil has decided not to complete the acquisition of 50.01% of YouMobile," Masmovil announced on Tuesday.
It did not provide any additional information, other than to comment on YouMobile’s financial position.
"Purely for informational purposes, it should be noted that 2015 revenues from YouMobile were expected at €4.6 million with EBITDA of €0.33 million," it said.
YouMobile, which provides a service aimed primarily at Chinese customers, had 57,000 mobile customers when the deal was announced.
Masmovil, also an MVNO using Orange as a host network, has 400,000 mobile customers and the same number using a home VoIP service, in addition to 25,000 business customers. It is in the process of becoming an integrated operator, primarily through M&A; in October it noted that it had acquired 10 companies in the past two years.
It aims to have close to 400,000 fixed broadband customers and 1 million mobile lines by 2018.
The firm hit the headlines in August when it declared itself to be Spain’s fourth national operator, having acquired fibre network assets from Orange’s Jazztel and brokered a wholesale agreement for copper xDSL network access. The European Commission approved the transaction in October.
Masmovil claims to be Spain’s sixth largest domestic operator and the fourth largest with an integrated offer. Its goal is to become one of Spain’s top five telcos by turnover.
In the first half of 2015 it generated €59.05 million in revenues and EBITDA of €1.25 million.
