FRANKFURT: Deutsche Telekom agreed to sell its part-owned Dutch subsidiary and increase its control of the US T-Mobile network, the company said on Tuesday.
Along with Swedish partner Tele2, Deutsche Telekom signed off on the sale of T-Mobile Netherlands to a group of private equity investors for 5.1 billion euros ($6.1 billion).
The German telecoms group also sealed a share swap with SoftBank, using some of the proceeds from the Dutch deal to purchase part of the investment giant's holdings in T-mobile US.
At the same time, SoftBank will acquire a 4.5-percent stake in Deutsche Telekom, the Japanese group said in a statement.
The deals will leave Deutsche Telekom with a 48.8 percent stake, just short of the majority ownership target the company had set itself since buying rival Sprint from SoftBank last year.
Softbank agrees strategic share swap pact with Deutsche Telekom
In the Netherlands, the T-Mobile brand has seen strong growth in recent years, increasing its market share to 42 percent in 2020 from 25 percent in 2017.
The buyers, a fund controlled jointly by British entity Apax and Americans Warburg Pincus, are "the perfect partners for T-Mobile NL to take the company to the next level of growth," Deutsche Telekom board member Thorsten Langheim said.
For its stake in the company, Deutsche Telekom will receive 3.8 billion euros.
The cash will be used to exercise options to buy SoftBank shares in T-Mobile US.
The company became the second-largest US mobile telecoms provider in terms of customers after it completed the takeover of Sprint in 2020.
The share swap was a "true win-win-win for our portfolio companies, SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom," said the Japanese group's Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure.
Timotheus Hoettges, chief executive of the German telecoms group, touted the "value creation opportunities from this cooperation".
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