Liberty Global has been the controlling shareholder of Telenet since February 2007
U.S. company Liberty Global said it is in a position to bring its ownership in Belgian operator Telenet to over 93% after the conclusion of an initial acceptance period of a voluntary public takeover bid, the company said in a release.
The bid was launched through its wholly-owned subsidiary Liberty Global Belgium Holding.
Liberty Global stated that its initial offer to buy outstanding shares in Telenet expired on July 12. Liberty Global said that the offer will be reopened for the remaining stakeholders next month. The reopening gives investors who missed the initial acceptance period or those seeking additional liquidity the opportunity to still accept the offer, Liberty Global said.
The tender attracted commitments from stakeholders to sell shares which would take Liberty Global just short of the 95% ownership needed for a squeeze-out procedure to acquire the remainder.
The results of the subsequent acceptance period will be announced on or around September 20, 2023, the company added.
In March, Liberty Global had said it intended to launch a voluntary and conditional public takeover bid for all the shares of Belgian operator Telenet Group that it does not already own, or that are not held by Telenet.
Liberty Global has been the controlling shareholder of Telenet since February 2007 and currently owns 59.18% of Telenet’s share capital, while Telenet owns 3.12% of the outstanding issued share capital in treasury.
The company had previously said that the purchase of shares will be funded by non-recourse debt financing obtained by Liberty Global Belgium Holding.
Belgian operator Telenet had started the gradual deployment of its 5G network in the country in December 2021.
At the time of the launch, Telenet said that the first 5G zones will be located around Leuven, Antwerp and the coast. In the course of 2022, the 5G network was expected to be expanded to the major Flemish cities.
The Belgian telco had said that its 5G network is expected to reach nationwide coverage by 2025. In March 2021, Telenet had selected Ericsson, Nokia and Google Cloud as its 5G network suppliers. Ericsson provided the Radio Access Network and Nokia the core network, while certain core functions were developed with Google Cloud.
Telenet provides cable TV, broadband, fixed and mobile telephone services, primarily to residential customers in Flanders and Brussels.
Last year, the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT) auctioned frequencies for 5G services in the 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz bands, and 2G and 3G spectrum in 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz and 2.1 GHz, generating 1.2 billion euros.
In this process, local operators Citymesh Mobile, Network Research Belgium, Orange Belgium, Proximus and Telenet Group secured 5G frequencies for a period of 20 years.
