Danes sell Sunrise for SFr3.3 billion
Swiss telecommunications company Sunrise has been sold to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for SFr3.3 billion ($3.25 billion).
The deal should be concluded during the final quarter of 2010 if the Swiss competition authorities approve the sale.
“We are very pleased with this merger,” Sunrise CEO Oliver Steil said in a statement. “With CVC we are getting the support of a strong, long-term financial partner.”
Sunrise has been owned by the Danish TDC Group, which has been trying for some time to part ways with its Swiss sister company.
Earlier this year a planned merger between Sunrise and the local subsidiary of French mobile operator Orange fell through after competition regulators vetoed the deal.
It was concerned that it would create a duopoly in Switzerland, with the merged company on one side and Swisscom, the country’s biggest telecommunications company, on the other. An appeal against that decision was later withdrawn.
CVC Capital Partners, a firm with its headquarters in Luxemburg, owns 51 companies worldwide employing nearly 400,000 people with a combined annual turnover of about €73 billion (SFr96.9 billion).
This is the second Swiss firm the investment group has purchased. In 1993 it bought Swiss manufacturer Sylvania Lighting International.
Sunrise, formerly known as Newtelco, came onto the Swiss market in 1996.
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