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According to reports, Danish telco TDC has hired investment firm LionTree to help them consider their strategic options as a business, which could seemingly include a partial or complete sale
Anonymous sources speaking to Reuters have revealed that TDC is currently undergoing an internal review, noting that high leverage and weak cash flow were affecting the company’s credit rating.
The report notes that discussions are still in an early stage, with no certainty that any transactions will take place.
TDC was taken private back in 2018 by a consortium led by Australian investor Macquarie. Today, Macquarie remains TDC’s largest shareholder, owning 50% of the business, with the rest of the company’s shares held by a number of Danish pension and investment funds.
In 2021, the company was carved up into two separate businesses in an attempt to unlock value for shareholders and encourage investment: TDC NET, which operates the company’s mobile and fixed broadband infrastructure, and Nuuday, the company’s consumer branch.
Since then, both TDC NET and Nuuday have reported mixed financial results, with the companies’ sluggish growth largely attributed to the highly competitive Danish market. Indeed, this environment is seemingly driving the country’s telecoms market towards consolidation, with rival telco Telia announcing earlier this year that it would sell its Danish unit to local utility giant Norlys for roughly $920 million. This deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year.
LionTree, meanwhile, is perhaps best known in the telecoms world as having advised Verizon on the acquisition of AOL for $4.4 billion in 2015 and later Yahoo for $4.5 billion in 2017. Verizon would go on to combine these two companies into a single business group dubbed Oath.
The ill-fated Oath would write down $4.6 billion in 2018 following the merger and, following a rebrand to Verizon Media Group, would itself be sold to private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion in 2021. LionTree advised on this acquisition as well.
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