Elisa buys Estonian, Finnish operations of Santa Monica Networks Group
Telecommunications company Elisa has entered into an agreement with Santa Monica Networks Group (SMN), a company specializing in secure IT networks and data center solutions, to acquire SMN’s companies in Finland and Estonia.
SMN is selling its businesses in Latvia and Lithuania as well, though they will be acquired by private equity firm Livonia Partners together their with management.
Elisa will pay €28 million for SMN’s Finnish and Estonian businesses. The completion of the transaction is subject to certain conditions, including approvals by the competition authorities of Finland and Estonia. The transaction is expected to be completed by May 1, 2017.
According to Elisa, the transaction has no impact on the company’s financial strategy for this year, and meets Elisa’s strategy to strengthen its position in the Finnish and Estonian markets.
“With this transaction we strengthen our corporate customers segment in the design, construction, and secure customer-oriented maintenance network solutions. The increasingly digital environments of our customers require continuously faster reactions to different situations. We will significantly increase this capability with Santa Monica Network’s solutions and expertise,” vice-president at Elisa, Jorma Niemela, said.
Managing director of SMN, Kai Vuokko, said that by combining the top expertise of the companies, they could offer superior expertise, and together would be able to provide customers with new services and even broader solutions in the area of secure corporate networks.
The revenue of the acquired companies reached approximately €44 million, EBIT approximately €3 million in 2016. Santa Monica Networks employs 73 people in Finland, and 36 in Estonia.
Elisa to set up 100 new base stations in Harju County
Elisa is also starting an extensive program this week to expand its 4G network in Harju County, as part of which it will set up one hundred new base stations around Tallinn over the next month at a cost of more than a million euros.
“Four weeks from now, 90-95 percent of the Elisa 4G network will be covered with a second frequency layer that will enable us to offer customers up to three times higher Internet speeds,” Elisa Estonia board member Toomas Poll said in a press release.
Poll added that the aim of Elisa was to introduce 5G Internet to the Estonian market, and that they were moving towards that goal by setting up different frequency levels.
The second frequency layer will be distributed evenly across the whole region based on actual customer activity. This means that the density of the 4G network is increased wherever necessary. Where Elisa’s existing 4G network uses a frequency of 800 megahertz, the new layer will predominantly use 1,800 megahertz, whereas the third layer will have a frequency of 2,600 megahertz.
Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS