Spain greenlights merger of Orange and MasMovil, minister says (updated)

Digi Communications

12/03/2024 12:13

(Adds minister's quote in paragraph 2, detail in paragraphs 3
and 4)
       MADRID, March 12 (Reuters) - Spain's government has
authorised a merger of French mobile operator Orange's  ORAN.PA 
Spanish business and its rival MasMovil, Digital Transformation
Minister Jose Luis Escriva said on Tuesday, the last formal step
after an EU approval last month. 
    An accompanying industrial plan for the resulting entity 
that will become Spain's biggest operator with more than 30
million mobile customers, "is truly ambitious", with strong
investments in fixed and mobile infrastructure, Escriva told a
news conference.
    The proposed merger of Spain's second and fourth-largest
telecoms providers had already secured antitrust clearance from
the European Union in February.
    Orange had earlier said that the deal, which has an
enterprise value of about 18.6 billion euros ($20.33 billion),
was expected to be completed by the end of the quarter.
        MasMovil will divest spectrum across three frequency
spectrum bands to Romania's Digi  DIGI.BX , the largest mobile
virtual network operator in Spain, so it can build its own
mobile network.
    ($1 = 0.9147 euros)

 (Reporting by David Latona and Emma Pinedo; Editing by Andrei
Khalip)
 ((david.latona@thomsonreuters.com; +34 918 35 68 13;))