In the face of the evolving telecom landscape and intensive price competition/increased churn and reduced ARPU across core businesses, operators are also looking to find ways to innovate and develop their offering, including entry into new markets and, for this reason, convergence-oriented deals where communications companies expand their traditional model to include other services and capabilities are also popular. We expect these "convergence" deals to remain popular provided debt and equity markets continue to remain buoyant and there is sufficient regulatory stability and certainty to spur these kinds of transactions.
This article considers the various commercial motives for convergence deals, lists some notable examples and also comments on the general trends seen in commitments, in cases where they do need to be agreed with competition authorities in order to secure competition clearance. It also considers the various practical strategies which can be implemented to secure competition clearance for such convergence deals and the other options available to operators to access infrastructure.
This article was first published in TMTFinance.com (published on 27 September 2017)
Key contacts
Veronica Roberts
Partner, UK Regional Head of Practice, Competition, Regulation and Trade, London
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