Hungarian ICT services group 4iG has signed a preliminary agreement with the minister responsible for management of national property, Andrea Mager, under which 4iG will acquire a majority stake in state-owned infrastructure operator Antenna Hungaria pending a final agreement, due diligence and the valuation of the assets by mid-October 2021. The two companies aim to combine their operations to create ‘a strategic telecommunications and telecommunications infrastructure company that, in addition to competitive market services, gives due weight to national interests within the industry,’ according to 4iG’s press release.
Antenna Hungaria is the exclusive provider of national digital terrestrial television and analogue radio broadcasting in Hungary, and owns a 25% stake in mobile operator Telenor Hungary and its infrastructure associate CETIN Hungary. Antenna Hungary also provides satellite communications services, LoRaWAN IoT network services and other telecoms/ICT services, while it is in the process of acquiring MVM Net, which operates a national 450MHz LTE-based network providing government/public sector/wholesale clients with critical communications/M2M/IoT services, supported by a 9,000km-plus fibre network.
Budapest Stock Exchange-listed 4iG agreed to acquire 100% of broadband, pay-TV and mobile network operator DIGI (Hungary) – including subsidiaries Invitel and i-TV – in late March, a deal which it expects to wrap up in September. Furthermore, at the start of June 4iG bought a 75% stake in satellite operator Hungaro DigiTel, and later that month it entered into a preliminary agreement to buy a 51% stake in another international satellite provider, Israel’s SpaceCom.