Orange on Tuesday announced that it has completed the final phase of its takeover of Jazztel, giving it sole ownership of the Spanish broadband operator.
The French telco has concluded the squeeze-out process, buying the 5.25% of Jazztel that it did not already own.
"The squeeze-out has been exercised at a price of €13 per share, the same price as the offer," Orange said, in a short statement.
As a result, the company now owns 100% of Jazztel, which will be delisted from the Spanish stock exchange on Wednesday, it added.
Orange agreed to buy Jazztel for €3.4 billion almost a year ago. It got the go-ahead for the deal from the European Commission and the Spanish Securities Commission, or CNMV, in May and in late June announced that shareholders representing 94.75% of Jazztel’s share capital had accepted its €13-per-share offer.
That level of acceptance enabled it to trigger the compulsory acquisition of the remainder, or the squeeze-out, at the same price.
The merger with Jazztel enables Orange to consolidate its position as Spain’s second largest fixed broadband operator, putting it much closer to market leader Telefonica. It is also the country’s number two mobile operator.
In order to gain European Commission approval for the takeover the telco agreed to a series of remedies, including the divestment of a chunk of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure and the granting of wholesale access to the Jazztel ADSL network for eight years.
Last week, MVNO and business services provider MasMovil announced it had agreed to buy the FTTH assets in question and lease access to the copper network, declaring itself Spain’s fourth telco in the process.
