Belgium’s Proximus completes takeover of Route Mobile

Belgium mobile telecom firm Proximus group has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Indian communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) firm Route Mobile.

Last July, Proximus had signed a definitive agreement with the CPaaS firm’s founding shareholders to acquire a 57.56% stake in the firm through subsidiary Proximus Opal for ₹5,922 crore (about $710 million), which corresponds to a price per share of ₹1,626.40.

Some of Route Mobile’s founding shareholders subsequently committed to reinvest EUR 299.6 million in Proximus Opal.

The original deal to acquire the initial shareholding in Route Mobile had triggered a mandatory tender offer of up to 26% of the total shares outstanding at the same share price.

That mandatory offer led to the acquisition of an additional 24.99% shareholding in Route Mobile for a cash consideration of ₹2,593 crore ($310 million).

Following finalization of the mandatory tender offer and receipt of regulatory clearances, the deal was sealed on Thursday, 9 May, the company said.

The stake from the mandatory tender offer, along with the shares acquired from the founding shareholders, brings the total shareholding of Proximus Opal in Route Mobile to 82.70%.

Founding shareholders of Route Mobile will reinvest EUR 299.6 million in Proximus Opal for a 12.72% stake in the coming weeks, the company said, adding that after the reinvestment, the total net cash-out is EUR 636.3 million (about $685 million).

A $755 million bond issued on 20 March will cover the financing needs for this operation, it added.

CPaaS is a cloud-based platform that allows companies to add real-time communication features like voice, video, and messaging to their applications without needing to build backend infrastructure and interfaces.