Commission Clears UPC France Acquisition

BRUSSELS, July 17: The European Commission has cleared
British investment fund Cinven’s acquisition of the French cable TV, broadband
and telephony provider UPC France from Liberty Global.

The 1.25-billion euros deal was first announced in March,
with a deal formally signed in June. Cinven owns a majority stake in Altice,
which includes three cable operators: Est Vidéocommunication in Alsace, Coditel
Bruxelles and Coditel Luxembourg. And last year, Cinven acquired France Télécom
Câble and NC Numéricâble in a 528-million euros deal. Cinven now adds UPC-Noos
to that operation, covering the majority of France’s cable subscribers.

The Commission has concluded “that the new entity would not
be in a position to exercise market power over pay-TV channel broadcasters
given its share of total sales of distribution rights for these channels,
particularly compared with the two French satellite platform operators (TPS and
CanalSatellite).”

The Commission also found that “the merger would not
significantly restrict effective competition, since each cable operator already
holds a de facto monopoly position in
the geographical area covered by its cable network and since combining the
networks within the new entity would not result in any real reduction in choice
for consumers.”