Cable & Wireless, the London-based parent company of Virgin Islands telecommunications firm LIME, has completed a $1.85 billion acquisition of its major Caribbean competitor, the Barbados-based Columbus International Inc.
The merger of the two companies was first announced last November. Like C&W, Columbus offers phone and cable television services on several islands in the English-speaking Caribbean but not the Virgin Islands. It also owns undersea fibre-optic cable networks across the region.
The merger will allow C&W to “invest more, grow faster, and provide an improved customer experience and, most importantly, a development opportunity for our people that either company could never have achieved on their own,” the company stated in a press release, adding, “There has been an extensive and professional regulatory review, with appropriate remedies. We are pleased we now have the necessary government support to conclude this important transaction.”
However, because C&W and Columbus compete against each other in several markets, some observers fear that the deal will give the companies too much power to charge higher rates to customers.
Digicel Group, which is based in Jamaica and operates across the region, is among those concerned.
“We are naturally concerned to ensure that this proposed transaction will not result in an un-level playing field in the Caribbean,” the firm stated in a November release.
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