United Internet AG obtained consent from the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection for the deal and finalised the acquisition of 100% of shares in Home.pl on 30 December. The new owner is 1&1 Internet SE – the German hosting giant’s subsidiary.

 

The value of the transaction is over twice the value of the initial market valuation of the acquiree.  “The transaction price is high, but we don’t think it’s too high. As regards financial ratios, it is definitely one of the biggest deals in the industry not only in Poland but also in the world”, said Marcin Kuśmierz, the chairman and one of the shareholders of Home.pl in July when a preliminary sales agreement was signed with the German buyer. He explained that the acquisition of Home.pl would allow United Internet to gain strong presence on the hosting market in Poland, which the company failed to accomplish in 2010. 

Home.pl will continue operating under its own brand. The technologies used, registered office in Szczecin, the management board and the personnel will remain unchanged. The Szczecin-based company will have the opportunity to assume responsibility for the expansion of United Internet in Central and Eastern Europe.

 

Home.pl has over 300 k customers and 1.5 m end-users of its services.  With estimated 2015 annual revenues of about EUR 25 m, the company is a leader with a comfortable edge on the hosting market in Poland.

 

Established in Szczecin in 1997, the company provides Internet access services to small and medium-sized businesses. In addition to hosting and domain registration, it specialises in providing Internet services in the areas of IT, e-mail account maintenance, making business applications available in the cloud, and software, including Microsoft.  Home.pl’s Szczecin office in ul. Zbożowa has about 250 employees.

 

United Internet AG, with its registered office in Montabaur, Germany, was established in 1988; since 2003 it has been listed on the stock exchange. One of the company’s brands is 1&1 Internet. The whole capital group employs about 8 000 people. The Company operates in Europe and North America.  The capitalisation of United Internet is 10 percent higher than PKN Orlen’s capitalisation and amounts to EUR 8.1 bn. (PLN 34 bn.). In the previous year, United Internet’s sales amounted to ca. PLN 13 bn. and the EBITDA was about PLN 2.4 bn.

 

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