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Vodafone wins approval for €7.7bn takeover of Kabel Deutschland

The acquisition will help Vodafone add fixed-line services to its offerings in Germany
Written by Michael Filtz, Contributor

In a last-minute push, Vodafone has secured enough Kabel Deutschland shareholder approval for its planned takeover of the German ISP and cable provider.

To go through, the deal — valued at around €7.7bn, or €87 per share — needed approval from 75 percent of Kabel Deutschland's shareholders by midnight on 11th September.

On 10 September, Vodafone announced in a statement that it had only secured buy-in from around 20 percent of shareholders, presumably in an effort to urge others to commit. Since a number of new shareholders had bought into the company early last week, they were given more time to cast their votes on the takeover. Kabel Deutschland announced that the 75 percent threshold had been met on Thursday.

Kabel Deutschland is Germany's largest cable network in Germany, and currently serves around 15.3 million homes with cable television and high-speed cable internet.

Vodafone launched the initial takeover offer in late June. The offer was quickly welcomed by Kabel Deutschland's management board, who advised shareholders to accept. If the offer had not gone through in this round, the UK telco would have had to wait another twelve months to launch another attempt, according to German law.

With the takeover, Vodafone will expand its offerings in Germany to include cable television and internet services. According to a Vodafone investor presentation, the takeover will allow the telco to almost double its revenues from its fixed-line offerings in Germany. Vodafone says that with the acquisition, it will serve around five million broadband subscribers, 7.2 million television homes, and 32.4 million mobile users in the country.

According to German mergers and acquisitions law, shareholders can still tender their shares within an additional two-week period that ends on 30 September. After that, the deal will be subject to approval from BaFin, Germany's competition regulator.

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