Telenet has taken full control of a telecom company outside Belgium for the first time by agreeing to buy all the remaining shares in Luxembourg’s Eltrona.
Telenet notes that following its acquisition of Coditel Luxembourg (SFR-Coditel) in 2017, SFR-Coditel’s activities were merged with Eltrona’s activities in April 2020. This transaction resulted in Eltrona’s founding shareholders obtaining 50 % +1 of the shares and Telenet 50 % -1 of the shares of the merged entity.
It adds that over the past two years, the merged entity has continued to develop its activities under the Eltrona brand, offering a wide and unique range of telecommunications services (video, internet, mobile telephony), covering the whole of Luxembourg, while combining the resources and expertise of Telenet and Eltrona.
Now, Eltrona’s founding shareholders wish to divest their share ownership in Eltrona. As a result, Telenet will acquire the 50 % +1 shares held by the founding shareholders, thus becoming Eltrona’s sole shareholder (with the exception of Eltrona Security Systems S.A. which will be acquired by members of the Denzle family).
The transaction is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks and the parties are working towards completion by early January. As of the beginning of January 2023, Eltrona’s activities will be consolidated in Telenet’s operational and financial figures.
Commenting on the transaction, John Porter, CEO of Telenet, said: “This acquisition unlocks new opportunities for both Telenet and Eltrona. It offers Telenet the opportunity to evolve as a telecommunications operator in a broader market. At the same time, Eltrona will benefit from Telenet’s success and reputation in Belgium. By becoming the sole owner of Eltrona, I believe Telenet will be even better able to deliver the growth perspectives it deserves for the future in the competitive and evolving Luxembourg market and to make it the number one brand in terms of customer experience”.
Paul Denzle, current CEO of Eltrona, added:” I am happy to hand over the keys to Telenet, more than 30 years after Eltrona was founded by my father and the other founding families. This will enable Eltrona to write a new chapter and I’m convinced that it will prove to be a success for the company, its customers, its suppliers and its employees. Of course I’ll be sad to hand over the reins to my successor but at the same time, we can all be proud of what we have achieved together. I would like to thank the shareholders and employees of Eltrona as well as all our customers and partners for the time spent together and I’m happy to leave them in the capable hands of Telenet”.
A new CEO will be appointed by Telenet in the coming months. In the meantime, Karl Abelshausen, currently VP finance M&A, integration & tax at Telenet, will be appointed as the interim CEO as soon as the acquisition has been completed. Abelshausen knows Eltrona well: he was CFO at Eltrona until the end of 2021, and has been a member of the board since July 2021. The next few months will be spent defining the company’s new strategy and wider ambitions.
At the end of September 2022, Eltrona had around 50,000 unique customer relationships, serving approximately 46,000 cable and/or IPTV subscribers, around 16,000 broadband internet RGUs, approximately 8,000 fixed-line telephony subscribers and around 2,000 mobile SIMs.
For the financial year 2021, Eltrona generated revenue of €30.6 million and realized an Adjusted EBITDA of €5.8 million and a negative Adjusted EBITDA minus property & equipment additions of €2.2 million due to high investments in a new IPTV and video platform.
