Separately, Telia Company has agreed to sell B2B service provider Telia Latvia to another subsidiary, Tet, after an open auction
First up: Nokia will supply RAN solutions from its ReefShark-powered AirScale portfolio in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
Nokia announced that Tele2 is expanding its long-standing partnership with the vendor to deploy 5G RAN in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in “a long-term deal”.
The two have worked together in the Baltic countries for 25 years, working on 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G deployments, and Nokia is the incumbent and sole supplier in the deal.
The Finnish vendor will provide equipment from its ReefShark System on Chip-powered AirScale portfolio.
Roll-out will begin after Tele2 acquires sufficient spectrum at auctions for low and high band frequencies over the next year. So far, Tele2 has previously acquired 5G spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band and the 700 MHz spectrum in Latvia.
Nokia’s AirScale RAN portfolio is designed for scenarios including dense-urban environments and wide-area coverage.
Telia shifts assets within its group
Telia Company is to sell 100% of its shares in Telia Latvia – a B2B telecom services provider – to fixed operator Tet following after an open auction.
The transaction values the company at value of €10.75 million on a cash and debt free basis, representing a full year 2021e EV/EBITDA multiple of 10x. It is expected the transaction will be completed in Q2 of this year after obtaining all the necessary approvals.
Telia Company says it is still committed to Latvia through its 49% ownership in the fixed network operator Tet and 60.3% ownership in the mobile network operator LMT.
Telia Latvia was founded in 1992 with 46 employees and offers large businesses across Latvia with four kinds of services: telecomns services, cloud services, data centre solutions and media solutions.
Tet is a local technology and entertainment operator in Latvia, offering a range of ICT and pay-TV services to households, businesses, the government and municipal institutions, as well as electricity and other services.
Tet is owned by the Republic of Latvia (51%) represented by SIA Publisko aktīvu pārvaldītājs Possessor and Tilts Communications A/S (49%), a wholly owned Telia Company entity.
Uldis Tatarcuks, CEO of Tet, says: “Tet’s strategy is to accelerate growth via acquisitions, and we are very excited about the opportunity to acquire Telia Latvia. We believe our businesses complement each other, especially within our data center and transmission business. We look forward to welcome Telia Latvia and its employees to Tet and together develop the business to the benefit of our customers, employees and the Latvian society at large”.