Telekom Austria Wants to Buy Serbia Broadband

Telekom Austria wants to buy cable operator Serbia Broadband, a deal that might cost as much as  1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), and illustrates a number of key trends in the European telecom market.

As now is clear in virtually every developed telecom market, organic growth, when it can be obtained, is very difficult. That always makes rational a search for growth by acquisition. 

Such acquisitions also often tend to make more sense "out of region" than in domestic markets.

Also, it also sometimes makes sense to diversify into complementary or other strategic assets, as in this case where a telco (fixed and mobile) wants to buy into a cable TV broadband asset. 

Telekom Austria owns mobile operations in Serbia,Croatia and Slovenia and is looking to add fixed-line assets in the region as well. 

What is noteworthy, at least in part, is the choice of a cable TV asset rather than a "telco" asset. That is at least partly a recognition that a cable TV network is, by definition, a broadband access network.