Telekom Austria on Wednesday announced the acquisition of another cable operator; its Bulgarian subsidiary Mobiltel has agreed to buy 100% of Blizoo Bulgaria for an unspecified sum.
The Austrian incumbent already has a full service portfolio in Bulgaria, but said the deal will enable it to boost its fixed-line assets in the market.
"We see a huge growth potential together with Mobiltel in the strongly rising fixed-line segment, which will be ultimately beneficial for our Bulgarian customers," said incoming Telekom Austria CEO Alejandro Plater.
Plater, currently chief operating officer at Telekom Austria, is due to take on the top job next month.
Blizoo Bulgaria is the latest in a series of acquisitions made by Telekom Austria as it seeks to capitalise on the growing demand for bundled and converged services in Europe.
The telco acquired Blizoo’s Macedonian business a year ago. The addition of the cableco’s broadband Internet, TV and fixed telephony services to its existing Vip operator business enabled it to offer quad-play services there.
At the time, Blizoo said the deal would not affect its strategy in Bulgaria.
More recently, Telekom Austria bought Amis, a fixed-line telephony, broadband and IPTV service provider in Slovenia and Croatia. That purchase will enable it to call itself a quad-player in six of its eight markets.
Blizoo is the second largest fixed-line operator in Bulgaria, with an 8% share of the broadband market and an 11% share in TV, Telekom Austria said. It covers 1.3 million households and has 373,000 subscribers. 2014 revenues came in at €47 million and EBITDA at €19 million.
"The majority of our customers take advantage of Blizoo’s multi-play offering already today; but in combination with Mobiltel, we will be able to offer the full four-play service spectrum to our customer base and this also offers great opportunities for further growth," said Blizoo Bulgaria CEO Harald Rösch.
Telekom Austria is buying Blizoo from EQT V. It expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approvals.
