Chris Dziadul Analysis: Deutsche Telekom's smart Polish move
The news that Deutsche Telekom has agreed to buy Poland’s Fiberhost and Inea from Macquarie Asset Management is significant on a number of levels.
Firstly, the transaction will be worth around €1 billion, making it the largest in the Polish TMT sector since 2021, when P4 acquired Liberty Global’s UPC Polska and Cellnex Telecom Polsat Plus Group’s Polkomtel Infrastruktura for €1.53 billion and €1.6 billion respectively.
Secondly, it underlines the importance Deutsche Telekom now attaches to the Polish market. Although it has a presence in several other countries in the region, including Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and those that once made up the former Yugoslavia, and has recently exited Romania, Poland is set to become by far and away the most lucrative.
By acquiring the open-access fixed network operator Fiberhost and retail broadband and TV provider Inea it will supercharge the growth of its local subsidiary T-Mobile Polska. Not only will it gain over 300,000 customers from Inea, but it will also secure a network from Fiberhost that passes over 1.4 million homes.
This will effectively transform Deutsche Telekom, through T-Mobile Polska, from a mobile only company operating on the Polish market into a fully convergent provider of telecommunications services. As such, it will be in a much better position to compete with the likes of Orange Polska, currently the market leader in Poland’s FTTH and convergent sector, as well as P4, which is part of France’s iliad Group, and Polsat’s Plus.
Thirdly, it marks the latest stage in the history of Inea, which traces its roots back to the early 1990s and was officially launched in 2006 with the merger of four cable operators in Poznan and environs. Its dynamic growth began when it secured Warburg Pincus as a majority investor in 2013, and its stake was in turn bought by Macquarie five years later. There then followed another major turning point in 2021, when restructuring saw the company split into Fiberhost and Inea.
Since then, Fiberhost, Inea and Wielkopolska Sieć Szerokopasmowa, a regional telco serving the Wielkopolska region in western Poland, have been grouped together under the Warsaw-based holding company Odin Ventures.
Fourthly, for Macquarie the transaction will mark an exit from the Polish telecom market, though it remains active in sectors such as logistics and real estate. Elsewhere in the CEE region, its main TMT asset remains the Slovak company Towercom.
For Deutsche Telekom, buying Fiberhost and Inea will undoubtedly open up a new chapter in its involvement in Poland. Aside from gaining more customers, it will for the first time have access to its own fibre network rather than being dependent on ones owned by other operators.
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