Vodafone Portugal has closed an agreement with Lorca JVCO, the main shareholder of MásMóvil, for the purchase of its Portuguese subsidiary Cabonitel, owner of Nowo Communications. The transaction is subject to the approval of the competition authorities.
In a statement, Vodafone points out that Nowo is the fourth largest operator in Portugal with 250,000 mobile phone customers and 140,000 fixed broadband customers. In addition, it has a network that covers nearly one million homes.
The British company has not wanted to communicate the amount of the transaction. Market sources indicate that the Portuguese business of MásMóvil has been valued at around 150 million euros. MásMóvil did not want to comment on the operation.
“The acquisition of Nowo allows Vodafone to strengthen its competitive position in the market, and expands its coverage, in order to attract future customers,” says Vodafone, which plans to close the purchase in the first half of 2023.
Portugal had become the starting point for the incipient international expansion of MásMóvil which, with the purchase of Nowo, became the fourth largest operator in the country. In fact, he drew up a strategic plan, which included the entry of financial partners, and in which he intended to apply a rate policy similar to the Spanish one. In addition, the firm attended the 5G spectrum auction held by the Portuguese regulator in 2021.
However, Digi, surprisingly, also went to the spectrum auction, buying frequencies for around 70 million euros. Its entry came to transform the Portuguese telecommunications market, which went from four to five network operators, which meant a knock for increased competition.
Now, on the contrary, if Vodafone finally closes the purchase of Nowo, the number of operators would remain at four with Digi, a very aggressive company in rates, as the main challenger. The Romanian group, in fact, has closed a network agreement with Cellnex to implement 2,000 connection points.
The Portuguese business of MásMóvil had been left out of its merger with Orange in the Spanish market. In this sense, the French operator did not intend for the Portuguese adventure to form part of the joint venturesince its intention is to focus investments in Spain.
In turn, the investment funds that control MásMóvil, KKR, Cinven and Providence, also had no intention of developing the business in Portugal, after the agreement reached with Orange in the Spanish market.
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