Telenet in talks with French telco Orange on network access deal

PARIS (Reuters) -Liberty Global’s Telenet on Thursday said it was in talks with France’s No. 1 telecoms company Orange over a potential network access to Walloon cable operator VOO, which Orange plans to acquire.

The companies have reached a memorandum of understanding which will structure further negotiations, Telenet said in a statement. Orange was not immediately available for comment.

Orange last year announced its plans to buy a majority stake in the Belgian fixed line business from Nethys in a deal which then valued the firm at 1.8 billions euros.

The planned purchase – currently under European Union anti-trust review, a source has said – would give Orange control over the cable network in Belgium’s French speaking Walloon region and part of the Brussels area.

The announced acquisition of 75% in VOO dealt a blow to Orange Belgium’s local rival Telenet, which had not been selected to enter into talks.

(Reporting by Piotr Lipinski and Mathieu Rosemain;Writing by Tassilo Hummel;Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)