France Telecom to Buy Spanish Mobile Operator Amena

France Telecom to buy Spanish mobile operator Amena

PARIS, July 27 (Xinhua) — French telecommunications group France Telecom announced Wednesday that it decided to buy Spanish mobile operator Amena.

France Telecom said in a statement its Orange mobile unit had agreed to buy 80 percent of Spanish telecommunications group Auna.

Amena is currently 97.9 percent owned by Auna, and is the No.3 Spanish mobile operator, with 22 percent of the market, behind Telefonica Moviles and Vodafone.

Finalization of the deal would occur only after Auna’s cable operations, which do not interest France Telecom, are sold.

The French group would then merge Auna, Amena and France Telecom Espana, which provides fixed-line and Internet services, and hold 75 to 80 percent of the new company.

The rest is to be owned by the Spanish bank Santander Central Hispano (SCH) and the electricity companies Union Fenosa and Endesa, Auna’s current shareholders, as well as by minority shareholders that include Spanish savings banks.

“The transaction will be paid in cash and will be refinanced by a share issue worth 3 billion euros (3.6 billion dollars),” said the statement.

The deal would strengthen the French operator’s position in Spain, the “fifth European market with an estimated growth potential between 2005 and 2008 of approximately six percent for mobile and more than 10 percent for data and Internet” services, it added.