Macquarie, Ardian eye Vodafone Spain
February 9, 2023
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Australian Fund Macquarie Capital, the main shareholder in telco Onivia, and French company Ardian, owner of regional telco Adamo Telecom, are both seeking to buy Vodafone Spain’s network that covers 10.5 million households (out of which 7 million are cable deployments and 3.5 million FTTH lines), and is currently valued at €4 billion, according to El Economista.
Vodafone has requested that Evercore, the US bank, coordinate all bids. Other possible buyers include the Canadian Fund Brookfield and the French Vauban, as well as insurance companies AXA, Allianz and Swiss Life.
For Adamo Telecom and Onivia, a possible acquisition of Vodafone’s network would boost their regional business in Spain and immediately make either of them one of the biggest players in the market. Adamo Telecom, acquired by Ardian for €1 billion, is increasingly expanding with the acquisition of local operators reaching 10,000 km with its FTTH network so far – with recent acquisitions agreements including Excom and ePorts and Globe Telecom.
Meanwhile, Onivia, backed by Macquarie along with Funds Aberdeen, Arjun and Daiwa, was founded after the acquisition of 1 million FTTH lines from MásMóvil, currently in a merger process with Orange.