Meteor parent sold for E4.5bn

Ian Guider

Alltel, the fifth biggest American mobile company, agreed the deal with Western Wireless Corporation, Meteor’s parent, yesterday.

There was no real indication last night that Meteor would be sold.

In a statement Alltel said the international business would “diversify” its assets and increase growth opportunities.

“It would be our intention as we go into this deal to keep the international assets,” Scott Ford, Alltel’s chief executive said yesterday.

There has been speculation that Alltel may dispose of Western’s overseas assets and that Eircom is the favourite to buy Meteor should it be put up for sale.

Brokers cautioned against any immediate interest by Eircom in Meteor if it does come on the market.

“While Eircom is likely to review any Meteor sale documents which become available, it is unlikely to make any decision on Meteor until the European Commission issues its findings on ComReg’s review of the Irish mobile market,” NCB Stockbrokers telecoms analyst Trisha McEvoy wrote in a research note yesterday.

The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) study on the mobile market found that Vodafone and O2 were dominant players and it wanted other operators to piggyback on their networks to increase competition.

Eircom, which harbours ambition to get back into the mobile market, could set up as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and buy airtime from any of the networks, eliminating the need to buy Meteor.

After a sluggish start, Meteor has seen a surge in customers in the past year.

In the third quarter of 2004, the last reported numbers, it had nearly 30,000 customers to bring its subscriber base past 250,000. Over the same period, Meteor’s revenues increased from E36 million to E60m.

Together the Western Wireless and Alltel have 9.8 million customers and sales of about $10bn and will generate savings of about $800m.

Some of the savings will be achieved through jobs losses.

Shares of Western Wireless, which have risen roughly 30% in the last month, rose 97 cents to $37.49.