Xavier Niel’s NJJ Capital acquries lifecell at an undisclosed amount

Turkcell, Türkiye’s #1 operator by subscribers, announced to sell its Ukrainian subsidiary, lifecell, to France’s NJJ Capital. Turkcell published the announcement on Dec 29, 2023 at Public Disclosure Platform (KAP), where public trading companies have to share such company developments. No terms of financial terms of the deal have been disclosed.

The sales transaction covers Turkcell’s two more Ukrainian subsidiaries, including Global Bilgi (call center & customer care) and Ukrtower (communication tower and infrastructure), according to the announcement at KAP. “The developments will be fully and timely disclosed to the public,” underlined Turkcell.

No suitors for lifecell for 5 years: lifecell CEO

İsmet Yazıcı, CEO at lifecell, said  lifecell couldn’t find any suitors 5 years ago at his LinkedIn post, adding that, “We are talking about a company who had never generated even $1 profit. We are talking about a company who had developed a looser mentality during the long years of money burning operation. The same company is about to be acquired by a foreign investor amid war conditions and the value is at the multiples of hundred millions dollars! The same company has been consistently increasing market share in both revenues and subscribers base.” The nominal values of shares sold are 12.7 billion Ukrainian hryvnias ($333.4 million) for lifecell, 47.2 million Ukrainian hryvnias for LLC Global and 1.96 billion Ukrainian hryvnias for LLC Ukrtower, per Bloomberg. By the end of the Q3 2023, lifecell had around 9.1 million active subscribers. (Here you can read my story how Turkcell’s mobile infrastructure is virtualized and run on cloud)

Xavier Niel: owner of extensive

telecoms portfolio all around Europe

NJJ Capital is an investment company run by Xavier Niel, telecoms tycoon and billionaire, who owns an extensive telecoms portfolio all around Europe. Niel also owns Iliad, which is the parent company of Free, one of France’s largest network operators. Niel’s company is the shareholder of Le Monde newspaper, owner of the communication operators Monaco Telecom, Salt Mobile, and Eir, as well as the French development company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.