The Swedish telecommunications operator TeliaSonera, which owns almost 80 percent of Yoigo, has commissioned Deutsche Bank to start the process of selling the operator for 600 million euros. The Swedish group is waiting to receive offers from several potential buyers in the coming weeks, among which would be Zegona, a company that currently owns Telecable, and MásMóvil, the telecommunications group that seeks to become the fourth largest operator of our country.
It would not be the first time that the Swede had intentions to sell Yoigo. Several years ago TeliaSonera tried it, although the process was never carried out. Jazztel was also one of the candidates to acquire the operator, something that did not finish forging either. Now TeliaSonera is trying again, this time hopefully with more success. To carry out the sale process, the company has chosen the German bank Deutsche Bank, which has already been involved in several operations around Yoigo. The fixed price has been 600 million euros, an amount that Zegona or MásMóvil would possibly be willing to pay, the two companies most interested in taking over the mobile operator at this time.
But which one of them will win? If any of them do at the end. In the case of Zegona, we have to say in its favor that the British venture capital group has promised its investors, a group of large firms including BlackRock and Fidelity, to invest between 3,000 and 4,000 million euros in the next few years in telecommunications assets in Europe. Currently this company, which is listed on the Stock Exchange, already has Telecable in its possession. The Asturian operator passed into the hands of this company in August of last year.
For its part, MásMóvil is a much smaller operator, although with the purchase of Yoigo it would be able to position itself in the Spanish market in a much more significant way. In fact, you could offer us many more services and start to grow as a business astronomically in a short time. For now all are rumors and conjectures and we do not know what will finally happen. As we say, any interested party will have to pay around 600 million euros if you want to have Yoigo in their power.
On the latest data we have in terms of figures, Yoigo earned two million euros in 2015. The operator registered sales of 854 million euros, 5.2% more than in the previous year. In 2014, its sales decreased by 24.1%. In terms of operations, Yoigo ended last year with 3.34 million clients, that is, 3.6% less than at the end of the previous year. The company indicated that in the last quarter of the year the number of lines fell by 54,000, due to the loss of prepaid users, which could not be offset by the gain of 14,000 contract customers. We are aware of everything that happens to inform you promptly.
