Telenor Group, the Norwegian telecoms company, has entered into an agreement to sell its assets in Central and Eastern Europe to PPF Group, a Prague-based financial and investment group, for a total of €2.8 Bn.
The transaction includes Telenor’s wholly-owned mobile operations in Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia and the technology service provider Telenor Common Operation. The transaction price corresponds to an EV/EBITDA multiple of 6.4 based on 2017 EBITDA. The transaction is expected to be completed within Q3 2018.
The CEE operations of Telenor have more than 9 M customers and around 3,500 employees and contributed approximately 9% to Group’s revenues and 8% to EBITDA in 2017. If the transaction is successful, Telenor will be left with mobile operations in the Nordics, and a strong presence in Asia. The Group currently has 178 M customers across Scandinavia, Europe, and Asia, and has 30,000 employees.
PPF Group is the largest private investment group in CEE with approximately €35 Bn in assets across multiple sectors: banking, consumer finance, real estate, mining, and telecommunications. With the current purchase ‘PPF Group is executing its long-term goal to become mid-sized European operator’, said Ladislav Bartoníček, PPF Group’s shareholder responsible for telecommunications.
