The 10 largest mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications industry in 2024

While data centers have attracted much of the capital from digital infrastructure investors, telecommunications companies are now proving to be an attractive proposition for investors. Large investments in infrastructure modernization have largely been realized and there are signs that antitrust restrictions on mergers of large telecommunications companies may be relaxed. This resulted in a flurry of deals in the first half of 2024 – here are the ten most important mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications and wider communications sector that took place this year.

1. Acquisition of Vodafone Italia by Swisscom

Vodafone has recently entered into several deals to reduce its operations in Europe, including the merger of Vodafone UK with Three and the sale of its operations in Italy and Spain. Vodafone Italia was the next telecoms unit in the storefront, and in March 2024 a deal was agreed to sell the unit to Swisscom for €8 billion. Following the acquisition, Swisscom intends to merge Vodafone Italia with its Italian subsidiary Fastweb.

Announcing the transaction, Vodafone CEO Margharita Della Valle said: “The sale of Vodafone Italy to Swisscom creates significant value for Vodafone and ensures the company maintains its leading position in Italy, which has been built on the dedicated commitment of our colleagues to serving our customers over many years.”

2. HPE will acquire Juniper Networks

In networking hardware and services, solutions provider Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has entered into a $14 billion deal to acquire Juniper Networks, helping HPE capitalize on the explosive demand for artificial intelligence among its customers as enterprises continue to shift to hybrid cloud services. The transaction will double HPE’s networking business in one fell swoop.

“HPE’s acquisition of Juniper represents an important inflection point in the industry and will change the dynamics in the networking market and provide customers and partners with a new alternative that meets their most stringent requirements,” said Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE, when the deal was announced.

Orange logo.jpg

3. Orange – Masmovil merger

Orange and Masmovil, two large players in the Spanish communications market, announced their merger in March 2024 to create a joint venture that will boast over 37 million broadband and mobile connections among its new customer base. Jean Francois Fallacher, CEO of Orange France, who also led Orange Spain for three years, has been elected as a non-executive director to lead the new joint venture, which will serve more than 30 million customers. Prior to the official announcement, the merger received the green light from the European Commission in February 2024.

4. Zayo is expanding its European operations

Announced: May 2024
Value: undisclosed
Status: in progress

US fibreco and network provider Zayo announced in May 2024 that it would separate its European operations from the rest of its global and North American operations. The new company will be based in London, Paris, Stuttgart and Sofia and will be led by current Zayo Europe CEO Colman Deegan.

This isn’t a major structural change because Zayo Europe operates a fiber network in eight countries that is already largely autonomous, as Deegan told Capacity after the deal was announced: “for the most part nothing will change.” The complete legal separation of the two companies is expected to take place by June 2024, although they will remain under the same ownership structure that was established when Digital Bridge and EQT Infrastructure acquired Zayo private for more than $14 billion in 2020.

5. The Iliad Group buys 19.8% of shares in Tele2

The Iliad telecommunications group, owned by French investor Xavier Niel, agreed in February 2024 to acquire 19.8% of shares in the Swedish telecommunications company Tele2, purchasing shares from the investment company Kinnevik, previously the company’s largest shareholder. This share will give Iliad 30% of the voting rights of Tele2 shareholders. Following the transaction, Iliad Group CEO Thomas Reynaud was appointed as the new CEO of Tele2, strengthening the Iliad Group’s influence in the telecommunications business.

The transaction structure is more complex than average and is divided into three tranches. In the first transaction, Freya purchased 4.5% of B shares representing 3.5% of voting rights, in the second larger transaction, 18.8% of the share capital of Tele2 will change, and the last 1% of shares covered by the transaction will be transferred to Iliad in the third quarter of 2024. This the latest sale continues Kinnevik’s attempts to free itself from its stake in Tele2 after the investment group sold a quarter of its shares in the telecommunications company in May 2022.

6. PIF acquires 51% of shares in TAWAL

Announced: April 2024
Value: $2.9 billion
Status: Completed

The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund agreed in April 2024 to purchase a 52% stake in TAWAL, a towerco previously spun off from Saudi operator stc. TAWAL, in turn, will be merged with Golden Lattice Investment Company, a tower portfolio that PIF previously acquired from Zain Group in 2022. The transaction adds over 8,000 tower properties to TAWAL’s portfolio, which entered the European skyscraper market in 2023 through the acquisition of United Group’s portfolio of towers in Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia, increasing the number of towers by 4,800. Taking into account TAWAL’s valuation of 5.85 billion percent, provided by PIF when the transaction was announced, this means that the transaction price is almost three billion dollars.

This deal is unlikely to be the last high-rise transaction in Saudi Arabia in the near future. At the time of concluding the PIF/TAWAL agreement, TowerXchange announced that the Third Kingdom operator Mobily had initiated the sale of 8,069 of its towers, with PIF most likely taking over them.

7. SES will take over Intelsat

Announced: April 2024
Value: $3.1 billion
Status: in progress

It takes two to combine the two largest satellite operators in the world. After a proposed merger between the two companies was scrapped in June 2023, SES agreed in April 2024 to spend $3.1 billion to acquire its US-based rival Intelsat.

The renewal of the deal comes after Intelsat walked away from a previous attempt to secure an acquisition worth up to $10 billion, with no comment on why. However, the two companies returned to the negotiating table in early 2024, and with the latest tie-up, a combined fleet of over 100 satellites in geostationary orbit and 26 satellites in Earth orbit will help the combined company compete with LEO-based operators such as Starlink and Project Kuiper owned by Amazon.

8. KKR Telecom Italia’s offer for the fixed-line network is growing

No major European telecommunications company had attempted to offload its fixed-line network until the November 2021 announcement of a massive $22 billion bid by investment group KKR for Telecom Italia’s fixed-line network – but major shareholder Vivendi was not at all happy with the deal.

Since then, the status of the deal has been subject to various approvals both within and outside the companies involved. Telecom Italia approved the deal in November 2023, and the Italian government approved it in January the following year. However, the deal has since hit further hurdles, and in April 2024, Reuters reported concerns about competition in the EU. This has led to KKR developing “countermeasures”, or ways of mitigating the impact on competition, with the announcement of the exact measures expected by the end of May 2024.

9. KDDI acquires 50% of shares in Lawson

Announced: February 2024
Value: $3.4 billion
Status: completed

A rare example of a telecommunications company pursuing out-of-sector M&A is Japanese mobile operator KDDI, which spent $3.4 billion for a 50% stake in convenience store operator Lawson, with the deal closing in April 2024 after being announced two months earlier.

Faxed amid fierce competition in the Japanese communications market, KDDI is looking outside the box for future revenue opportunities. The deal with Lawson gives the telecommunications company a huge amount of customer purchase data, which it intends to use to sell its banking and financial services, as well as promote connectivity and subscription offers at more than 14,000 Lawson stores across Japan.

10. NTT Docomo acquires 66% of shares in Orix Credit

Announced: March 2024
Value: $500 million
Status: completed

Another Japanese telecommunications operator looking for additional sources of revenue is NTT Docomo, which announced the acquisition of 66% of Orix Credit, a lender specializing primarily in B2C finance. Japanese telecommunications companies are trying to create so-called “closed ecosystems” – in other words, revenue streams outside their core area – and financial services are a popular acquisition target. Both KDDI and Rakuten offer a variety of financial services, leveraging their household brand status and gigantic customer bases, and NTT Docomo’s latest deal follows its acquisition of Monex in late 2023.