Eurobites: Cellnex offloads Austrian business

Spanish towerco Cellnex has agreed to sell its Austrian business to a consortium of investment companies for €803 million (US$877 million) in a deal that Cellnex CEO Marco Patuano described in a statement as "one further step within the company's 'Next Chapter' … to achieve the goal of consolidating, simplifying our corporate structure and focusing our efforts in the existing growth opportunities in the main markets in which we operate." The consortium stumping up for the business comprises Vauban Infrastructure Partners, EDT Invest and MEAG. (See Eurobites: Cellnex reveals its Next Chapter, sells Irish unit.)

Talking of investment companies, Alchemy, which describes itself as a "leading European corporate special situations investor," is to sell Lebara, its pan-European MVNO, to Waterland Private Equity. Since acquiring Lebara in 2018, Alchemy has moved it away from being a predominantly prepaid business and begun winning over the more valuable SIM-only and postpaid customers. Lebara claims 4 million subscribers across the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Denmark. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.

UK broadband provider TalkTalk has agreed a refinancing deal worth an additional £170 million ($217 million) with a group of banks and confirmed a number of management changes. Current group CEO Tristia Harrison will become a non-executive director of the group, while James Smith, current group CFO, will become group CEO and CEO of PlatformX Communications (PXC), TalkTalk's wholesale arm, with Tom O'Hagan taking on a new role of executive chairman of PXC. (See Eurobites: TalkTalk debt crisis deepens – report and Eurobites: Harrison to step aside as CEO of TalkTalk.)

Eutelsat has entered exclusive negotiations regarding the sale of its satellite ground stations to EQT, a Swedish investment company, for €790 million ($863 million). The deal under discussion would give rise to a new company which would be 80% owned by EQT, though Eutelsat would remain as a long-term shareholder, anchor tenant and partner, with a 20% holding. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a formal merger inquiry into the partnership between Amazon and Anthropic, the latter a specialist in artificial intelligence. The CMA has until October 4 to decide whether to go ahead with a "Phase 2" investigation into the Amazon/Anthropic arrangement. In April the CMA launched three separate but linked inquiries into tech giants' partnerships – two of them struck by Microsoft and one by Amazon – with much smaller AI companies.

Openreach, the semi-autonomous network access arm of BT, has started work on new fiber networks in the town of Dorking and in the Great Bookham area – both of them locations in the southeast English county of Surrey. Openreach has committed to rolling out its full-fiber network to 25 million homes and businesses by the end of 2026.