Vodafone is considering a move for Portuguese cable operator Cabovisao, it emerged this week.
The mobile operator has held preliminary talks with the cableco’s parent company Altice, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the situation.
Vodafone is one of a number of parties to have expressed interest in Cabovisao and sister company ONI, the source said, adding that the sale process is likely to continue through the summer.
Altice offered to sell Cabovisao and business services provider ONI in order to smooth the regulatory path for its acquisition of Portugal Telecom’s domestic assets. It agreed to buy Portugal Telecom from Brazil’s Oi for €7.4 billion in December.
On Monday the European Commission approved the Portugal Telecom takeover on the condition that Altice divest the two businesses. Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the sale is necessary to protect competition in the market.
Portugal Telecom, which now offers all of its consumer services under the Meo brand, serves close to 45% of Portugal’s mobile subscribers, while Vodafone holds second place in the market with a share of over 35%, according to regulator Anacom.
Buying Cabovisao would enable Vodafone to significantly boost its presence on the fixed-line side; the pair both lag a long way behin d market leader Portugal Telecom and number two player Nos in the fixed broadband market, but together could start to build some scale.
Portugal Telecom controls almost half of the market, followed by Nos with 35%. A merged Vodafone/Cabovisao would have 15.9% of the fixed broadband market, based on end-2014 figures from Anacom.
They would also have a 13.7% share of the pay TV market, compared with Nos’s 44% and Portugal Telecom’s 42.2%.
