PLAY acquired by ILIAD GROUP

Iliad SA has launched a friendly public tender offer to acquire 100% of the capital of Play, executing a major cross-border corporate buyout within the European telecommunications sector. The transaction is structured as an all-cash offer, which received unanimous approval from Play's board of directors and is scheduled for finalization by the end of the year. To secure execution, Iliad has obtained firm undertakings from Play’s two main reference shareholders to tender their combined equity stake. The transaction's financial engineering relies on Iliad’s existing cash reserves and senior credit lines arranged by a syndicate of commercial banks, which will increase the group's net debt leverage ratio. The investment thesis centers on scale-driven geographical diversification and market consolidation within the European digital infrastructure landscape. By fully absorbing Play—the leading mobile network operator in Poland with 15 million subscribers—Iliad reconfigures its corporate footprint, transitioning into the sixth-largest European mobile operator with a combined customer base of over 40 million subscribers. This corporate combination substantially diversifies Iliad's revenue mix and cash-flow profile, shifting its historical reliance away from the French domestic market to expand its international operations.