THE HAGUE: Dutch telecom operator KPN announced Tuesday it has sold its German subsidiary E-Plus to Spain’s Telefonica for five billion euros in cash and a 17.6 percent stake in Telefonica Deutschland.
The deal creates the biggest operator on the German market, as measured by subscribers, and puts an end to a long hostile effort by Mexico’s America Movil to take over the KPN unit.
Following approval from the authorities, the sale should allow for 5.5 billion euros in efficiencies on the German mobile communications market, KPN said in a statement.
“KPN will use most of this money to increase its financial flexibility and intends to resume payments of dividends to stockholders for 2014,” the company said.
The announcement comes as KPN announced a 68 percent fall in net profit for the first half of 2013 to 108 million euros. Sales in the period were off 8.1 percent from a year earlier to 2.93 billion euros, the company said.
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