Bitė has acquired Mezon, but Telia does not assemble weapons

Approximately more than 20 million formally completed. Bitė announced the transaction in euros on Wednesday. The company received the last permit required for the transaction in late November.

“The agreement is important because a state actor is leaving the market, where private participants have been competing successfully for many years, and the country’s budget receives the highest possible price for the business for sale,” Bitė said in a statement .

After the completion of the transaction, not only 100 thousand people passed into the hands of Bitė. For this service, the clients of Telecentro, Mezon brand, are used, but also Telecentro frequencies.

The Competition Council approved the acquisition with certain reservations: Bitė will not transfer access to Mezon’s 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz frequencies to its joint venture with Tele2, Centuria, which was established to implement the 5G connection.

According to Bitė, the transaction will benefit users of fixed Internet services, since by acquiring Mezon, Bitė promises to compete with Telia, which dominates this market.

However, Telia has appealed to the court against decisions to transfer the frequencies from Mezon to Bite. In mid-December, the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court refused to hear the claim, but the decision was appealed to the Lithuanian Supreme Administrative Court.

Telia emphasizes that two of the 16 transmitted radio frequency bands included in the Mezon transaction were transferred to Telecentro without competition six years ago.

“Why doesn’t the State sell the frequencies of the semi-finished Telecenter at auction, at market price, and not in accordance with the proportionality procedure in force until now? These are unanswered questions, ”Audrius Stasiulaitis, representative of Telia, told BNS.

According to him, Telia was not involved in the privatization of Mezon, although it also considered that possibility.

Telia says that these frequencies should be auctioned so that all operators can compete for them, or Bitė would give up part of its frequencies.

Additionally, A. Stasiulaitis notes that according to Telia Company, the market value of only three of the 16 frequencies managed by Telecentras is approximately 60 million. euros.

At the time, P. Kuisys, the director of Bitė, said in mid-December that Telia was abusing the law, unfairly obstructing the sale of Mezon’s business and calling the actions of competitors “unfair and unethical.”

Previously, he told BNS that Bitė promises to invest about 20 million in the renovation of the Mezon network. Mezon is seen by the company as a player in the fixed Internet market, the acquisition of which is intended to compete with Telia in this market.

Mezon mobile 4G Internet service has been provided by Telecentras since 2009, but it never separated this business from Telecentras core business.

Reports submitted to the Registry Center indicate that the Telecentre earned 659 thousand LTL last year. 20,719 million euros of net profit. income in euros.

Telecentras received more than half of its revenue (EUR 11.3 million) from services developed under the Mezon brand, but reports do not indicate whether the business is profitable.