Telenor sells stake in Norwegian broadband unit for $1 billion

OSLO (Reuters) -Norway’s Telenor on Friday said it had agreed to sell a 30% stake in its Norwegian fibre broadband unit for 10.8 billion crowns ($1.0 billion) to a consortium led by U.S. investment company KKR and pension firm Oslo Pensjonsforsikring.

“This transaction highlights the value in our infrastructure, strengthens our financial position and unlocks capital to support continued high fibre roll-out in Norway,” Chief Financial Officer Tone Hegland Bachke said in a statement.

The newly established Telenor Fiber AS, which owns the group’s passive fibre assets in Norway, including some 130,000 km (81,000 miles) of cables connecting more than 560,000 homes, will still be majority owned by Telenor, the company said.

Around 30% of the proceeds from the stake sale will be used for share buybacks, Telenor said.

Telenor maintains control of both the operations and processes in the company, it said.

($1 = 10.7515 Norwegian crowns)

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