Kabelcom, Multikabel and Casema to combine forces

Cinven and Warburg Pincus, announce today that agreement has been reached in principle to acquire Essent Kabelcom from Essent N.V. for €2.6 billion.

This follows the recent agreement for Cinven and Warburg Pincus to acquire Casema and for Warburg Pincus’ stake in Multikabel to be contributed to the new holding company.

It is intended that following completion of both transactions, Kabelcom, Casema and Multikabel will co-operate in providing cable services to the Dutch market.

Kabelcom, headquartered in Groningen, is the second largest cable company in the Netherlands. The company operates in the field of data-communication and telecommunication, radio, TV, Internet and telephone services, for the consumer market as well as business-to-business. As at June 30, 2006, the Company had 1.7 million television subscribers (of which 183,000 subscribed to digital packages), 595,000 broadband internet and 99,000 telephony subscribers.

Together Kabelcom, Casema and Multikabel will serve over 3.3 million customers and have pro forma revenue of approximately €870 million for the financial year ended 31 December 2005.

Subject to works council consultations and regulatory approvals together with customary closing conditions the transaction is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2007.

David Barker, partner of Cinven, said

“We are delighted to have secured a further high quality investment in the important Dutch cable market. We believe that the intended combination of Kabelcom, Casema and MultiKabel creates a strong platform for delivering compelling and high quality triple-play services to customers in the Netherlands. Cinven has very significant current experience in the European cable markets bring to bear on the combined group. We expect to invest significantly in driving the growth of the group and look forward to working with Warburg Pincus and all stakeholders to achieve this goal."

Morgan Stanley, ABN AMRO, Credit Suisse, ING and Rothschild acted as financial advisers to Cinven and Warburg Pincus.