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The deal could be valued at up to €1.5 billion, according to analysts
Telecoms giant Liberty Global is in talks to purchase Ireland’s largest mobile operator, Three Ireland, according to a report from The Financial Times.
Formal discussions are already underway with Three Ireland’s owner, Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison, with the deal potentially worth €1.5 billion. However, no formal decision has yet been made.
Three Ireland currently has around 5 million subscribers, representing around 49% of the market, according to telecoms regulator ComReg.
For Liberty Global, the deal would present an opportunity to tie its Irish telecoms businesses together into a single entity.
The company currently operates an Irish mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), Virgin Mobile, which delivers services to around 140,000 customers using Three’s network; it also owns Virgin Media Ireland, which controls around 21.5% of the Irish fixed broadband market.
The acquisition of Three Ireland would allow Liberty to combine these businesses into a single converged entity, offering major cross-selling opportunities and theoretically network synergies.
By contrast, CK Hutchison’s recent focus has been on the potential launch of an initial public offering (IPO) for its global telecom assets, valued at around £20 billion
First reported in March last year, the planned IPO was initially on hiatus until the closure of the £16.5 billion Vodafone–Three merger, but it now appears to be regaining momentum, according to reporting this week. The assets could be listed as early as Q3 this year, according to anonymous sources.
However, this direction is far from certain for Hutchison, which has also been exploring sales of its units in Denmark and Sweden in recent years, as well as a tie-up between its Italian unit WindTre and local rival Iliad.
If any of these deals were to gain significant traction, they could significantly delay any plans for an IPO.
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