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Vodafone makes offer for Spanish cable company Ono(EFE Ingles Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) London, Feb 9 (EFE).- British telecom giant Vodafone has offered to buy Spanish cable television provider Ono for 7 billion euros ($9.54 billion), The Sunday Times reported. "The formal offer will be discussed by the Ono board on Tuesday," the newspaper said, citing sources. Vodafone has been looking to acquire cable companies as competition from fixed-line providers, such as BT in Britain, heats up, the newspaper said. The telecommunications company reported last week that revenues in Europe fell nearly 10 percent in the last three months of 2013, with sales plunging in Spain and Italy. "Bundles of phone, broadband, mobile and pay-TV services are becoming increasingly popular in Europe, forcing Vodafone into a costly 'quadplay' race," The Sunday Times said. Vodafone paid $7.7 billion euros ($10.5 billion) last year for Germany's Kabel Deutschland in an effort to boost its presence in Europe's largest economy. CEO Vittorio Colao plans to make an offer for Fastweb, a broadband cable provider in Italy. Vodafone has been in talks for several weeks with Providence Equity Partners, Quadrangle Capital and GE Structured Finance about acquiring Ono. Executives, however, have not commented on the possible deal. Vodafone has the capital to execute the deal as a result of the sale of its stake in U.S.-based Verizon Wireless for 95.33 billion euros ($130 billion), The Sunday Times said. EFE jm/hv (c) 2014 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc. |