Advanced Television

State approval for Com Hem Boxer Sweden acquisition

September 2, 2016

The Swedish State has approved Com Hem’s SEK 1,330 million (€144m) acquisition of pay-TV operator Boxer TV-Access AB, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Teracom Boxer Group AB. Com Hem now awaits the Swedish Competition Authority’s approval before the acquisition can be completed.

Boxer is a pay-TV operator in the DTT network in Sweden with approximately 500,000 subscribers, predominantly in the Single Dwelling Unit (SDU) market. The fibre expansion in the SDU market has over the last years put pressure on Boxer’s customer base. The Com Hem SDU expansion programme aims to enable Boxer to sell market leading bundled broadband- and TV-services to its customer base.

The acquisition, announced on June 8, was conditional on approval by the State of Sweden.

The State of Sweden has, through the Cabinet Minister Mikael Damberg, approved the sale of all the shares of Boxer TV-Access AB to Com Hem. Now, only the approval from the Swedish Competition Authority remains in order for the acquisition to be completed. The Swedish Competition Authority has announced that it will make the decision by October 27, 2016.

“We are of course very pleased with the State’s decision and look forward to a positive response from the Swedish Competition Authority as well” says Anders Nilsson, CEO of Com Hem.

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