Under the terms of the deal, Masmovil will retain the Lycamobile brand in Spain and is subject to the approval of antitrust authorities, the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC).
"When we entered Spain, we dreamed of building the country's largest MVNO with high-quality, cost effective mobile services,” said Allirajah Subaskaran, founder and chairman of the Lyca Group.
“We have now succeeded in that mission, and the acquisition by Masmovil is an affirmation of our success and we are proud that Masmovil has retained the Lycamobile brand for the long term. We wish Masmovil the very best and continued success and growth in Spain."
Lycamobile Spain launched in 2010 with the goal of delivering high quality, low-cost mobile services to the market. To date it has achieved a market penetration of over 1.5 million customers.
"We will now turn our attention to building our global presence with entry into new and exciting markets to add to our existing 23 markets, and furthering Lycamobile's capabilities in the industry by rolling out similar MNO launches to that which we recently did in Uganda," said Subaskaran.
"We would like to thank our loyal customers, our business partners, and the dedication of our Spanish Lycamobile team, who made our story in the country such a success."
In related news, Macquarie Capital and Aberdeen Standard Investments entered into an agreement with Masmovil to acquire 940,000 building units fibre-to-the-home network in Spain, back in November.
The network belonging to Masmovil Broadband, S.A.U. and Masmovil Ibercom, SA, currently provides bitstream services across Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Malaga. Masmovil has become the first major customer of the network, the company has also signed a minimum volume commitment with the new network as part of the sale of the network.
