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Business & Money

Swedish communications firm Com Hem up for sale

Published: 10 Dec 10 10:10 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/30744/20101210/

Swedish television and internet company Com Hem is up for sale and expected to fetch 13 billion ($1.89 billion) to 18 billion kronor, newspaper Dagens Industri (DI) reported on Friday.

Competitors Telia and Norway's Telenor have been named as the potential buyers, the report said. Telia was Com Hem's previous owner, but sold the unit to appease the EU in its bid to merge with Sonera in 2003.

Private equity firm EQT Partners, which is owned by the Wallenberg family-controlled Investor, bought Com Hem for 2 billion kronor and sold it to American asset management firms The Carlyle Group and Providence Equity Partners two years later for 10 billion kronor.

Com Hem currently has about 650 employees in Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, Västerås and Härnösand. Other interested buyers in the company include former Danish telecommunications monopoly TDC and Swedish telecommunications operators Tele2 and 3, DI reported.

According to DI, Telia has contacted the EU anti-competition authorities to investigate the possibility of bringing Com Hem back into the fold.

Com Hem supplies triple play services that include cable and digital television, broadband, telephony and HDTV. The company now offers nearly 62 different television channels. It reaches a third of all Swedish households.

The company ranked as the television brand with the least satisfied customers in Sweden in 2007, 2008 and 2009, according to the Swedish Quality Index (Svenskt Kvalitetsindex), an independent customer survey company.

TT/The Local/vt (news@thelocal.se)

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15:02 December 10, 2010 by Rishonim
here here Dude 79. Also those two fat women are freaky as well.
15:48 December 10, 2010 by SolnaMicke
Hate those lardballs with red wigs *yuck*

Dont get the OnDemand box from Motorola, it´s crap. The remote dont work ,if U have to remove-putting batteries back, when u start the box n volume dont work either. No info on ComHem website...I´m mad as hell
21:22 December 10, 2010 by Frobobbles
I offer 63 cents for the f*ckers
22:34 December 10, 2010 by DAVID T
what's with the pigs on the photo?
00:56 December 11, 2010 by zircon
Maybe they're pregnant pigs. BTW: Tina, is that you?
14:37 December 11, 2010 by freecommentator
This bad service they offer occurs when a company stays on auction from one hand to another, out of financial speculation, instead of building a quality reputation by working better all the time!
18:14 December 11, 2010 by Michael Whitfield
Don't know anything about this company, but couldn't the firm find some Swedish looking women for this ad. Normally, Sweden is not know for any Dolly Dimples type of females.
15:27 December 12, 2010 by darrenj
It can only get better. I unfortunately have to deal with them as the housing association I live in has a full time contract with them.

A real crappy company!!
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