A Telenor group executive will take on the CEO role at the firm’s planned Danish joint venture with TeliaSonera.
Hilde Tonne, currently head of group industrial development at Telenor and a member of the telco’s executive management team since 2007, will head up the venture, while Telia Danmarks’s CEO and CFO will also have leading roles, Telenor announced on Wednesday.
Telia Denmark chief executive Søren Abildgaard will become deputy CEO of the merged entity, while the firm’s financial chief will become CFO.
TeliaSonera and Telenor agreed to merge their Danish operations late last year, a move that will reduce the number of mobile network operators in the country to three from four.
As such, the tie-up requires regulatory approvals. The European Commission opened an in-depth investigation in April, expressing concerns about the impact of the deal on competition, and last week it issued a statement of objections reiterating those fears.
Nonetheless, the telcos remain confident that the deal will close in the second half of the year.
They insisted that their merger will be beneficial for competition, since the JV will have the scale to invest and to compete on price. The merged company will have a market share of around 40%.
"With the merger of Telia and Telenor we will become a robust operator in the Danish market," said Tonne.
"This will be beneficial for the customers who can look forward to valuable services and improved network experience," she add ed.
Meanwhile, Robert Andersson, TeliaSonera’s head of Europe, described Tonne as "a very competent and experienced leader with a strong track-record for driving change and for challenging [the] status quo."
"These skills are an ideal match for joining two business units and forming a new, strong and innovative company with the ambition of challenging the Danish telco market," he said.
The executives will take up their new positions once the deal has the regulatory green light and the JV has been formally established. In the meantime, starting on 1 August, Tonne will lead a small team of Copenhagen-based employees that will make preparations for the merger.
