lifecell will become the property of a French billionaire.
The Turkish mobile operator Turkcell announced the sale of its Ukrainian business, including the mobile operator lifecell, to the French investment company NJJ Capital of billionaire Xavier Niel. This was reported on the Turkish public disclosure platform.
In addition to lifecell, the agreement concerns Global Bilgi LLC (a network of call centers) and Ukrtauer LLC (telecommunication towers).
The transfer of assets has not yet been completed, and information about the transaction “will be communicated to the public in full and in a timely manner,” the statement said.
The nominal value of the companies is UAH 12.7 billion for lifecell, UAH 47.2 million for Global Bilgi and UAH 1.96 billion for Ukrtauer.
The value of the deal will be determined when it closes.
What is known about the new owner of lifecell
Xavier Niel is a French businessman, founder of the French Internet and mobile operator Iliad, which operates under the Free brand in France and under the Play brand in Poland. He is also a co-owner of the newspaper Le Monde, owner of the telecom operators Monaco Telecom (Monaco), Salt Mobile (Switzerland) and Eir (Ireland).
According to Forbes magazine, as of March 2021, Niel was ranked 269th in the world with a net worth of approximately $9.4 billion.
lifecell is a Ukrainian telecommunications operator providing mobile communication and data services based on high-speed Internet. As of the end of the third quarter of 2023, lifecell had 9.1 million active subscribers.
Let us remind you that in mid-December there was a failure in the network of the Kyivstar mobile operator as a result of a hacker attack. It took several days to restore the network, then the entire load fell on two other Ukrainian mobile operators – Vodafone and lifecell.
