Telekom Romania Strikes Deal to Sell Assets to Digi Communications

Deutsche Telekom’s Greek subsidiary OTE Group signed an agreement to sell its Romania mobile operation to an investment company owned by Digi Communications. The pact comes six months after OTE revealed it was in negotiations to offload the asset to Quantum Projects Group. Its new deal is with West Network Invest, a company owned by operator group Digi Communications and Clever Media Group.

In a stock market statement, the Greek company noted the pair were in the process of applying for regulatory approval for the sale, which is also subject to various other closing conditions. For Digi, the deal represents a boost in a market where GSMA Intelligence Q1 figures show its local unit already has 6 million mobile connections. Telekom Romania Mobile is the smallest of the country’s four players by those metrics, with 3.8 million.

The market is led by the local units of Orange (9.4 million) and Vodafone Group (7.3 million). In its statement, Digi CEO Serghei Bulgac revealed once the deal was complete, Telekom Romania Mobile would remain “in the market as an independent telecommunications operator”. Digi has also been expanding its mobile play elsewhere of late, including acquiring spectrum in Spain as part of the remedies from the union of Orange and Masmovil and preparing for a launch in Belgium.