ComCom to sell mobile frequencies next year

On 11.29.10, In Mobile, By Editor

The Swiss Communications Commission (ComCom) is expecting to raise several hundred million Swiss francs from an auction of frequencies in the first half of 2011.

ComCom has launched the public tender for mobile frequencies in the 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz and 2600MHz ranges. Some frequencies are available for use immediately, while others are part of the existing GSM and UMTS licenses of Swisscom, Sunrise, Orange Switzerland and In&Phone, and will become free on 31 December 2013 and 31 December 2016, respectively.

According to ComCom, the frequencies will be auctioned, with interested parties having until 18 March 2011 to register their interest. Each registration is expected to include the maximum amount of spectrum an applicant wishes to purchase within the individual bands, as well as a bank guarantee in the amount of the minimum bid for the frequencies they are applying for.

Altogether there are 61 frequencies blocks in the auction, which if all sold will raise a minimum of US$597 million.

The new licenses will be valid until 2028 and will be awarded on a technology-neutral basis. The auction format is designed so that both the number of licenses and the available bandwidth are not predetermined by ComCom. The auction will be conducted using an electronic auction system which allows secure bidding over.

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Sunrise looks up to France Telecom yet again

On 11.24.10, In Mobile, By Editor

The head of Switzerland’s second largest telecoms operator Sunrise has reportedly stated that he could not rule out fresh merger talks with France Telecom.

Sunrise’s outgoing Danish owner, TDC group, had been planning to merge its subsidiary with France Telecom-owned Orange’s Swiss business but the plans were abandoned in June following a rejection by the Swiss Competition Commission (COMCO).

According to Sunrise chairman Dominik Koechlin, he thinks the company could not rule out new talks on a merger between Orange and Sunrise.

TDC agreed in September to sell Sunrise to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners. Mobile operator Orange is one of Sunrise’s biggest rivals in Switzerland.

COMCO had objected to a tie up on the grounds that a merged company would have taken a dominant position in the mobile telephone market alongside top Swisscom, leaving the country with just two networks.

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CVC in talks to buy TDC’s Swiss Unit for US$3 Billion

On 09.22.10, In Mobile, By Editor

If sources are to be believed, CVC Capital Partners Ltd is planning to buy TDC’s Sunrise unit for US$3.3 billion.

The company in November agreed to sell the unit to France Telecom, with the plans to merge it with its Orange unit in Switzerland but the deal failed in June as the regulator rejected the merger. Regulatory said that the Sunrise sale may have hindered plans by TDC’s private-equity owners closer to sell their five-year investment in the Danish phone company.

Sunrise is Switzerland’s No. 2 operator after Swisscom AG. It gets roughly three-quarters of its revenue from wireless, with the remainder coming from fixed-line services.

According to the John Strand, it looks like a good, realistic price. There’s no doubt Sunrise is doing well, stealing market share from Orange, and the Swiss franc is up.”

CVC is paying for the deal, valued at US$3.3 billion, with roughly one-third of its own cash and two-thirds borrowed funds, which is suggestive of the funding mix private-equity firms used before the financial crisis. More recently, with bank lending more scarce, private-equity firms have put up closer to half the purchase price in a number of cases.

According to sources, the TDC-France T©l©com deal, aimed at competing more effectively with Swisscom, was scuttled amid regulatory opposition earlier this year. CVC approached TDC’s owners soon after that deal fell apart.

CVC is paying a pretty diffident amount about six times of its recent EBITDA for Sunrise, which has little or say no debt.

Private-equity firms Apax, Blackstone Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Permira and Providence Equity Partners took TDC private in a US$12 billion deal in 2006, at the time Europe’s largest-ever leveraged buyout. The private-equity firms had been looking for an offering of TDC shares earlier this year, but those plans were complicated by the collapse of the France T©l©com deal. The prospect of an offering will likely be revived now.

According to the close sources, Proceeds from the Sunrise deal will likely be used to repay debt the private-equity firms saddled TDC with. That could pave the way for a TDC share offering as early as the fourth quarter of this year.

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Swiss telco InPhone obtains antenna sites from Sunrise

On 03.17.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The purchase of the former Tele2 mobile antenna sites from Swiss mobile operator Sunrise has been completed by forthcoming Swiss mobile operator In & Phone. An acquisition agreement for over 400 antenna sites with Sunrise was signed by InPhone in December last year with the execution of all administrative tasks to transfer these sites.

Finalization of integration of the build sites will be done during the summers which will enable InPhone to offer services by the end of this year. Development of services for the customer needs of travelers and cross-border markets is also the consideration of the telco.

InPhone customers will be helped by Switzerland/Germany dual-country proposition to avoid high international roaming charges.

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