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Orange, open to mergers and opposed to assuming the cost of football rights: “It is very high”

Orange Spain has made its attitude to any merger perfectly clear: “We have to maintain profitability and any market consolidation would be positive for our players. We support any consolidation operation with or without us. We are very open to any possibility that may arise. present “, said Jean François Fallacher, CEO of Orange Espaà ± a.

The person in charge of the second operator in the country since last year has also warned that the company is not willing to assume the current cost of the football rights, which are paid according to a formula that Fallacher does not consider appropriate : “These rights are paid based on subscribers to pay television, and it should be done based on those you have in football,” he recalled. That method already lled Vodafone to give up sports content, a position that Orange is approaching: “It is not appropriate and we have expressed this to the CNMC [Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia]”. According to the French, in view of the pandemic,” for everyone, football no longer means what it used to do in the past. “France, where Mediapro has had to release those rights due to disagreement in renegotiations, is a good example of it.

In addition, Orange has separated its infrastructures in Spain and France to create a new “sister” company that rents these towers to businesses in both countries, under the name of Totem. Orange Spain provides 7,900 connection points, for 17,600 from the Gala branch of the company, to add 27,500 sites in Europe, ready to share with other partners.

“We want to have an autonomous business, with a direction focused on that business, to operate and manage these towers. It is going to be a business that splits from Orange Spain and becomes an autonomous business that will report to the group,” he argued Fallacher.

This process of carve-out It represents a divestment of non-nuclear assets for Orange Spain, which intends to focus on telecommunications services. According to Fallacher, the profitability multiples of a telco company can be tracked at 5 or 7, while “in the tower business the long-term profitability could reach multiples of 21 or 30.”

Regarding the results of 2020, Spain reduced its income by -5.9% in 2020, to invoice 4,951 million euros. Commercial income, that from retail customers, fell by -7.6%. Ebitda last year stood at 1,433 million euros, which represents a 13% decrease compared to 2019.

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