Polish mobile operator Play calls off sale

The owners of Polish mobile phone operator Play have called off an auction to sell the business after private equity offers failed to meet expectations. Greek fund Tollerton and Iceland’s Novator, which own the business, received non-binding bids from a handful of private equity firms last week. Warburg Pincus and Cinven made a joint offer with the other bidders, including Blackstone and CVC Capital Partners, sources close to the matter said. Confirming that the sale had been called off, a statement from Tollerton, which owns 50.3 percent of Play, said that the business had attracted “seven non-binding offers evaluating the company around the area of €3.5 billion”. Play, which has 14.2 million subscribers, competes in the Polish market mainly against Germany’s T-Mobile (owned by Deutsche Telekom) and France's Orange. It had a revenue of PLN 5.4 billion ($1.41 billion) in 2015 and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of PLN 1.7 billion.