TelEm buys Cable TV
GREAT BAY – TelEm Group announced yesterday the signing of a purchase agreement to take over ownership of St. Maarten Cable TV from its present owner Innovative.
Negotiations resulting in the purchase agreement were conducted by the TelEm Group Partnering Committee along with telecommunication merger and acquisition specialists.
The announcement is being made simultaneously to St. Maarten Cable TV personnel and TelEm Group personnel following months of negotiation and an intense due diligence process under a strict confidentiality agreement.
TelEm Group Chief Financial Officer Helma Etnel, said the company is “extremely pleased” with the signing of this purchase agreement since it entails a major strategic benefit to the TelEm Group.
Etnel stressed that the assets of the cable company, its TV content agreements and its client base all have great added value to the company.
“TelEm Group experience and resources, together with St. Maarten Cable TV assets create a unique synergy that will allow TelEm Group to meet St. Maarten’s long term broadband needs in an accelerated time schedule,” states both companies in separate notifications to respective personnel about the purchase agreement.
Once all other matters related to the purchase are closed, the companies will begin working together to integrate services presently offered by both companies, Etnel said.
Today Newspaper Online will be bringing you more news and views, reviews and interviews as time goes by regarding this new merger between Telem Group of Companies and St. Maarten Cable TV. The former is owned by the government of St. Maarten and the latter is owned by Virgin Islands-based Innovative, the market leader in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), providing a broad range of telecommunications and cable TV services. Their family of residential and business services includes local telephone, long-distance, Internet, cable TV, wireless and business phone systems.
In St. Maarten, St. Maarten Cable TV has been providing TV service to the St. Maarten population since October 1987. Currently the cable television company offers 80 channels that are available in various packages to suit customers’ needs. Since 2008,the company has also been undergoing a major upgrade, that will utilize fiber and node activation to allow it to offer high-speed internet service in these upgraded areas.
