Frinet

History

2021: Datagrup bought Frinet for $19 million

In December 2021, it became known about the purchase of the Ukrainian Internet provider Frinet by the competing company Datagrup. The parties to the transaction submitted documents for its approval to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU).

A case has begun on the concentration in the form of the acquisition by Datagroup Holding Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) of a stake in the authorized capital of Frinet Limited Liability Company (g., Kiev), Ukraine which ensures an excess of 50 percent of the votes in the highest governing body of the company, - said in a statement on the committee website.

Datagrup acquired Frinet for $19 million

Datagrup and Frinet did not disclose the amount of the transaction. According to the source of the publication dev.ua, we are talking about the amount of $19 million. Frinet CEO Viktor Frolov, in a conversation with the portal, clarified that the final price will be set after all inspections. For several months before the transaction, the company conducted the audit necessary to complete the transaction.

For the first time, Datagrup plans to buy a Frinet provider were reported back in August 2021. Then the transaction amount was estimated in the range from $11 million to $19 million. At that time, the Frinet company was controlled through Brokbusinesinvest by Elena Kutsenko and Sergey Pud.

By December 2021, Frinet has about 163 thousand subscribers in Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhya, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Kiev, Rivne, Khmelnitsky and Chernihiv regions. Datagrup has the largest market share among operators in the segments of data transmission, transit of international traffic and satellite communications.

In October 2021, the media reported that Kyivstar was ready to buy Datagrup for about $100 million. The presence in the market of conversations about Kyivstar's interest in Datagrup was confirmed by the head of the telecom group NEQSOL Holding (owned by Vodafone Ukraine) Vasil Latsanich. According to him, this deal could mean the death of "real competition in the fixed Internet market."^[1]

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