As part of its plan to focus on key (i.e. growing) markets, Telefonica has agreed to sell its Isle of Man telecoms business – Manx Telecom. The carrier, which was often used as Telefonica’s “testbed” for first deployments of new mobile technology, is going to the hands of private equity firm – HgCapital for 158.8 million GBP (192 million EUR), which is 6.3 times OIBDA (Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization) for the year ended 31 December, 2009. The deal may close by the end of this month.
For the record, Manx Telecom is the Isle of Man’s largest operator, offering fixed, mobile and data services to individual consumers and businesses, alike. It was the first European company to launch a live 3G WCDMA service and also launched Europe’s first commercial HSDPA service. At the moment, Manx employs 300 people and had reported revenues of 69 million GBP last year.
The next big thing for the Spanish group is to acquire the rest of Brazil’s Vivo from Portugal Telecom, but that’s not something we’ll discuss in details here…
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]