Ukraine’s cable industry may have witnessed a major deal that will significantly strengthen the position of Volia, already the undisputed market leader.
Unconfirmed reports in AKTR and Comments say that Providence Equity Partners, the backers of Ukraine’s leading cable operator Volia, have acquired the local assets of FiberNet, the Hungarian operator that was recently taken over by Invitel.
These assets include SDS Falstap, the largest cable operator in the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk.
Founded in 1997, SDS Falstap covers 80% of Dnipropetrovsk and had 134,000 cable TV subscribers at the end of 2008. This already makes it the second largest cable operator in Ukraine after Volia, which has a total of 1.5 million cable TV and 420,000 internet subscribers in 19 cities.
By merging SDS Falstap into its operations, Volia would see its market share increase to some 40%.
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