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Andorra Telecom continues to make headway in its strategy to internationalize its activity. Jordi Torres, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Jordi Nadal, Managing Director, appeared before the media on Tuesday to inform them of the purchase of 37% of the shares of Avatel Telecom, amounting to 16 million euros.

Avatel Telecom is the result of the merger of five companies on the Spanish coast which provide the following telecommunications services: Internet, telephony, television and data storage. More specifically, it is firmly established on the Costa del Sol (Málaga) and the Costa Blanca (Alicante) and in El Campo de Gibraltar (Cádiz).

The company, which has 22,000 fibre optic customers, is valued at 43 million euros. The assets of the company, which provides services for many foreign residents, include a state-of-the-art fibre optic backbone network stretching more than 220 kilometres along the Spanish coastline.

The agreement guarantees Andorra Telecom three of the six places on the Board of Directors, including the Chair, and establishes a qualified majority of 66% of the capital to enable the general meeting of shareholders to approve decisions. In practical terms, this means that any agreement requires the approval of the Andorran company.

In addition, the operation is accompanied by an agreement between the two parties to convert Andorra Telecom into a provider of the Spanish telecommunications company. The agreement envisages Andorra providing annual services amounting to roughly 1 million euros, including monitoring of the network via the Andorra Telecom operations centre, technical support in systems and a telephone helpline through the ESPIC contact centre. In addition, it gives priority to Andorra Telecom for any service Avatel Telecom wishes to subscribe to.

The Managing Director of Andorra Telecom emphasized that this operation is particularly interesting in view of the industrial synergies stemming from the invoicing of direct services.

Jordi Torres, Minister of Territorial Planning and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Andorra Telecom, placed the operation within the context of the company’s strategic map, whose pillars include economic diversification and internationalization. This policy has enabled it to launch new activities, such as the provision of telephone helplines. In this regard, he indicated that the telecommunications market is extremely dynamic and is generating new business opportunities.