Vodafone buys European fixed line units

Vodafone acquired two European fixed line operations over the weekend, shelling out Eur775m for Tele2’s Italian and Spanish units.

The acquisition will give Vodafone almost 2 million fixed telephony customers in Italy, along with 268,000 broadband resale customers and 375,000 direct access and unbundled customers.

In Spain, the Big V will acquire approximately 307,000 fixed telephony customers, 47,000 broadband resale customers and 200,000 direct access and unbundled customers.

Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, president and CEO of Sweden-based Tele2, said that the company had decided “to take advantage of the consolidation processes currently taking place in the Italian and Spanish telecommunications markets in order to realize value.”

On Monday, Tele2 also announced that it has sold its Austrian MVNO operations to Telekom Austria for Eur7m.

At the end of June, Tele2 had 131,000 mobile customers in Austria. Jarnheimer said: “Our strength in Austria lies within our infrastructure based fixed and broadband operation. However, the current market environment leaves us little room for a profitable and sustainable MVNO operation.”