The vast majority of Jazztel’s shareholders have agreed to sell out to Orange, enabling the French firm to take 100% ownership and delist the company around mid-August.
Orange on Frid ay announced that shareholders representing 94.75% of Jazztel’s share capital have accepted its offer to buy them out for €13 per share. Orange will pay out €3.18 billion on 1 July as a result.
That level of acceptance enables Orange to trigger the compulsory acquisition of the remainder, which it intends to do, at the same price. It will take its ownership of Jazztel to 100% on or around 13 August, paying an additional €176 million.
Once that squeeze-out has taken place, Jazztel will be delisted from the Spanish stock exchange.
Orange announced its €3.4 billion move for Spanish broadband provider Jazztel in September. It got the go-ahead from the European Commission and then from the Spanish Securities Commission, or CNMV, a month ago.
Orange is already Spain’s second largest broadband operator with 2 million lines in service at the end of February, according to the latest data from the Comision Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC). The addition of Jazztel will give it 1.6 million more lines and a combined market share of 28%, putting it closer to Telefonica, which controls 45% of the market.
Orange is also Spain’s second largest mobile operator, with 11.6 million customers and a 23% market share at the end of February. It is only slightly ahead of Vodafone, which had 11.2 million.
Vodafone acquired Spanish cable operator Ono last year. The pair together had 2.8 million broadband customers – or 22% of the market – at the end of February.
