The operator would sell approximately 720,000 fibre connections that Jazztel had installed in five cities including Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, according to Nicolas Laederich, an executive at Orange who manages its regulatory affairs and competition issues.
In addition, the buyer of the fibre assets will also be able to rent out capacity on Orange-Jazztel’s fixed network through a wholesale agreement.
“We have already had contacts with several interested parties,” Laederich told Reuters. "These remedies in no way undermine the attractiveness of the Jazztel acquisition for Orange."
The French operator submitted a number of concessions to the European Commission in April 2015 in an effort to ease concerns that the takeover would impede competition. The concessions included a commitment to sell overlapping assets, including parts of Jazztel’s fibre optic network.
Sources told Reuters that the European Commission is set to approve Orange’s takeover of Jazztel. The deadline for a decision is June 1 2015.
In September 2014, Orange offered to acquire Jazztel for about $4.4 billion in order to compete with Telefonica and Vodafone. Vodafone competed its acquisition of national cable operator Ono in July 2014.
