Swisscom ups stake in Germany's debitel
Swisscom has announced it is to buy a 10 per cent shareholding in the German telecommunications company, debitel, for around SFr470 million ($291.93 million).
The shares, owned by DaimlerChrysler Services, will increase Swisscom's stake in debitel, Europe's largest network-independent service provider, to 84 per cent.
In a statement on Friday, Swisscom, it was exercising an option agreed in 1999, when it bought 74 per cent of debitel's shares.
Swisscom views debitel as a strategically important growth engine. With a customer base in Europe of eight million last year, debitel will concentrate more in future on profiling itself as a provider of mobile value-added and data services.
It added that to achieve this goal, debitel had stepped up cooperation with D2 Vodafone and had secured UMTS access by signing a non-exclusive agreement as an enhanced service provider.
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