RCS&RDS has been battling UPC, formerly Astral, on the cable TV market for over fifteen years.
“As far as I know, the parties decided not to go ahead with the deal,” a source close to the talks who would rather remain nameless told ZF. “I don’t know what the reasons are,” the source added.
“The RCS-UPC deal fell through, and one of the reasons is the failure of the talks over the exchange of assets on the Hungarian market,” another telecom market source told ZF. “RCS has no time to waste; had the talks been favorable, the papers would have already been submitted to the Competition Council,” the source added.
A third source close to the UPC-RCS talks says that one of the key reasons for the failure of the deal were certain differences the consultant teams of the two parties had over the interpretation of some data in UPC’s financial statement. “Under the circumstances, RCS&RDS requested a financial audit, but was turned down.”
Still, it is not yet clear whether the door is closed on a potential deal, and whether the parties may be willing to resume talks at some point.
UPC Romania officials would not comment on the information at hand when contacted by ZF, while RCS&RDS officials did not answer ZF’s questions on this topic.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu; Editing by Radu Bostan)