The Federal Competition Commission has no objections to the sale of Swiss telecommunications company Sunrise to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
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The commission said on Friday that the SFr3.3 billion ($3.45 billion) deal, which should be concluded during the final quarter of 2010, would not structurally alter the dynamics of the mobile telephone market in Switzerland.
Sunrise is 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 the Competition Commission 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 An appeal against that decision was later withdrawn.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, headquartered in Luxembourg, owns 51 companies worldwide employing nearly 400,000 people with a combined annual turnover of about €73 billion (SFr98 billion).
Sunrise, formerly known as Newtelco, came onto the Swiss market in 1996.
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