Green light:Telefónica Deutschland receives final clearance for E-Plus acquisition

MUNICH. Today, Telefónica Deutschland has received the EU Commission’s final clearance for the acquisition of the E-Plus Group from the Dutch telecommunication group KPN. The European Commission confirmed that the previously announced agreement with Drillisch complies with the agreed upfront conditions.
Rachel Empey, Markus Haas
Rachel Empey and Markus Haas
With the final clearance of the European Commission now granted, we are able to close the transaction soon, and create a leading digital telecommunication company in Germany,” said Markus Haas, CSO of Telefónica Deutschland. Rachel Empey, CFO of Telefónica Deutschland, added: “By combining the strengths of both Telefónica Deutschland and E- Plus, the new company is well positioned to challenge the market with even more innovative products and services, combined with a great customer experience.” In the course of the merger clearance process, Telefónica Deutschland has agreed to sell upfront 20 percent of its mobile network capacity using a Mobile Bitstream Access model, with the opportunity to extend up to an additional 10 percent. Telefónica Deutschland had signed a corresponding contract with Drillisch, which the European Commission has now confirmed complies with the upfront conditions associated with the approval of the transaction. Telefónica Deutschland remains confident to close the acquisition during the third quarter of 2014. As a next step Telefónica Deutschland will execute the capital measures to finance the transaction.
Telefónica Deutschland Holding AG, listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in the Prime Standard, and its wholly-owned, operationally active subsidiary Telefónica Germany GmbH & Co. OHG is part of the Spanish telecommunication group Telefónica S.A. headquartered in Madrid. The company offers its German private and business customers post-paid and prepaid mobile telecom products as well as innovative mobile data services based on the GPRS, UMTS and LTE technologies with its product brand O2. In addition, the integrated communications provider also offers DSL fixed network telephony and high-speed Internet. With a significant presence in 24 countries and a customer base of more than 313 million accesses, Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications companies around the world.