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South Korea: Watchdog OKs telcoms’ mergers with cable operators

By  |  November 10, 2019

South Korea’s antitrust regulator said Sunday that it has given conditional approval to fixed-line operator SK Broadband Inc. to merge with t-broad, the country’s No. 2 cable TV operator, in a deal worth 4.7 trillion won (US$4 billion) that could allow the merged entity to hold a quarter of the country’s pay TV market.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) also approved the country’s third-largest mobile carrier, LG Uplus Corp., to acquire a 50 percent stake plus one share of CJ Hello Co., the nation’s largest cable operator, from South Korean entertainment giant CJ ENM for 800 billion won.

The two conditional approvals could “boost competition for innovation in a rapidly changing technology and market environment,” Joh Sung-wook, the FTC chairperson, said in a news conference on Friday.

Full Content: Yonhap News Agency

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