Last week Datagroup, a leading national fibre infrastructure and digital services provider in Ukraine, announced the acquisition of Volia, the country’s leading pay-TV and cable broadband service provider in the retail segment.
The details of the transaction were not disclosed.
As reported in April, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) supported the deal by providing $65 million in financing. This was the largest EBRD loan to Ukraine’s telecommunications, media and technology sector.
Mikhail Shelemba, Datagroup’s CEO, said: “The merger between Datagroup and Volia has created a national fixed line leader across key customer segments – B2C, B2B, and wholesale. The combined network will cover over 4 million Ukrainian households in the country’s top 50 cities. With over 30,000 kilometers of fiber infrastructure, it will be one of the largest networks in the country.”
The two companies intend to “integrate subscriber bases, optimize of costs and business processes and modernise the network” for accelerated growth. They will also “continue to advance and provide world-class entertainment and content on streaming platforms to all of [their] retail customers.”
Volia offers over 180 channels, including its own package of five Cine+ movie channels.
Datagroup is now “truly position us as a national leader, paving the way for further consolidation of a very fragmented fixed telecom market,” said Shelemba, as more than 6,000 ISPs are registered in Ukraine. As a result of the acquisition, the group will employ over 4,000 people serving more than 1 million customers.
This merger also aims to create a “platform of sufficient scale” for Ukraine’s last-mile and national fibre infrastructure to “attract substantial capital investments,” including from foreign players, said Lenna Koszarnyof Horizon Capital in a previous statement This leading Ukrainian PE firm is the majority shareholder of Datagroup, owning 96% of its shares.
