Swisscom acquires remaining stake in FastWeb for $326 million

Seeing Italy's telecom market as a major growth spot, Swisscom is going to acquire the remaining piece of competitive last mile service provider FastWeb for about $326 million.  

Swisscom's growth instincts are spot on. After Swisscom acquired a major stake in the company in 2007 for $5.3 billion, FastWeb's broadband customer base has grown to about 1.7 million subscribers as of the end of June.

Already owning 82.1 percent of the Italian service provider, Swisscom will offer $23 per share once it receives Italian stock exchange regulator CONSOB's approval. It will fund the deal with a mix of its own assets or an existing credit line.

What's contributing to FastWeb's growth is its customer's thirst for broadband access. In addition to its ADSL and ADSL2+ offerings, the service provider is going to launch its Fibre 100 service that will give about two million homes and businesses 100 Mbps data connection.

Going forward, Swisscom plans to maintain growing its presence in Switzerland and Italy.

For more:
- Telecompaper has this article

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