Akado acquires a cable TV provider in the region of St. Petersburg

2011-11-09



Akado, one of the leading telecommunications groups in Russia, completed an acquisition of Sertolovskoye Televideniye (Sertelovo Television), a company providing cable TV and broadband internet services in the Saint Petersburg region. Akado’s new asset provides cable TV service to 6,600 households out of 11,000 overall households in the Russian town of Sertolovo, where the company is the only caTV operator. Since Akado has a number of subsidiaries in the Saint Petersburg and Leningrad regions -- including a 100% stake in CaTV provider, TKS “Neva”, and a 60% share in the cable and broadband services operator, P2 -- where its subscribers base for the company’s CaTV services now reaches 52,000 customers, while the number of broadband internet subscribers totals 5,150.

According to Vladimir Kremer, head of Akado’s board of directors, this acquisition is in line with the group's new strategy of focusing on regional expansion and efficiency improvement. Dmitry Yaremenko, an analyst in AC&M Consulting, considers that Akado paid approximately RUB 11-12m (€0.28-0.30m) for this asset.

At the end of June 2011, Akado served 757,000 of broadband internet subscribers in Moscow (being the second largest fixed-line broadband provider with a 20% share in the local market), St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, according to AC&M Consulting. The company also had 450,000 pay TV customers. In 2011, the owners of Akado negotiated the sales of the company to Megafon, one of the leading mobile operators in Russia. However, they failed to agree on the price.

More about Akado's presence in the Russian broadband market can be found in the recently published story: "17.4 million residential broadband internet subscribers in Russia at H1-end"