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Sunrise-UPC deal approval; Telecom Italia chairman's exit; digital tax in France

TOP NEWS

* The Swiss Competition Commission approved Sunrise Communications Group AG's proposed CHF6.3 billion acquisition of Liberty Global PLC unit UPC Schweiz following an in-depth probe. Sunrise CEO Olaf Swantee welcomed the regulator's decision, saying the combined entity would gain a higher market share due to improved telecom infrastructure and services.

* Fulvio Conti stepped down as chairman and a director of Telecom Italia SpA. The company said its board will meet Oct. 21 to discuss appointing a successor. Board member Michele Valensise will serve as interim chairman. Enel Open Fiber SPA Chairman Franco Bassanini denied being shortlisted to replace Conti, Reuters reports. Enel SpA owns Enel Open Fiber.

* Mounir Mahjoubi, France's former digital affairs minister, may file an amendment to a budget bill, which when passed will force internet companies, such as Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc., to reveal profits made in the country in relation to the imposition of tax against the companies, Bloomberg News reports. French lawmakers are expected to begin discussing the bill Sept. 27.

PAN-EUROPEAN

* Moonbug Entertainment Ltd. appointed former ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE executive Nicolas Eglau to head its Europe, Middle East and Africa business, Digital TV Europe reports. Eglau will be based out of Moonbug's London office.

* The European Broadcasting Union named Liz Corbin deputy media director and head of news, effective January 2020. Corbin is joining the public broadcasters' alliance from the British Broadcasting Corp., where she is currently head of news for the BBC World News channel.

UK AND IRELAND

* French content distribution company Alchimie SAS acquired U.K.-based over-the-top service provider TVPlayer Ltd. in a move to penetrate the British market, TVB Europe reports. Alchimie CEO said that the transaction will accelerate its plan to launch Alchimie U.K.

* Multichannel streaming service Channelbox is launching linear and OTT live trial network Law&Crime through Freeview UK Ltd., Broadband TV News reports.

* Snap Inc. unveiled its new slate of Snap Originals, which includes anthology series "Mind Yourself" from U.K. production company Barcroft Studios. The unscripted series will premiere during winter 2020.

* BBC Studios Ltd. reduced the average difference between the pay of men and women to 10.3%, compared with 14.1% in 2018. BBC Studios also included more women in leadership roles, now at 52.1% from 49.2% year over year.

* Fox Networks Group Inc. executive Prentiss Fraser joined Endeavor Content as executive vice president for international TV sales, TBI Vision reports. Fraser will continue working in the U.K. as Endeavor plans to relocate its TV distribution operations to London.

* Arqiva Group Ltd. reported 2019 fiscal-year revenue of £990.4 million, a 2.7% year-over-year increase compared. EBITDA increased by 5%.

* Ofcom began processing applications for new community radio licenses. The British regulator will award the licenses to successful applicants by the end of March 2020.

GERMANY, SWITZERLAND AND AUSTRIA

* Rike Schulz, chief reporter at Hamburger Morgenpost, decided to leave the company, shortly before the German newspaper's possible sale, Meedia reports.

* SAP SE's cloud solutions, SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Cloud Platform, are now available on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Alibaba Cloud. Alibaba and SAP also announced that they will jointly design local solutions and co-innovate in the areas of internet of things, artificial intelligence and enterprise-level big data applications.

FRANCE

* Orange SA signed an agreement with Lot-et-Garonne to accelerate the deployment of optical fiber in the French region. Orange will deploy more than 100,000 fiber connections that customers will be able to access during the first half of 2020.

* Ubisoft Entertainment SA opened a new studio in Da Nang, Vietnam. The Da Nang studio will first focus on developing instant games for several social media platforms and on collaborating with other Ubisoft studios on mobile games development. Ubisoft Da Nang plans to recruit approximately 100 employees over the next three years.

* Media solutions provider GlobeCast France SAS promoted Shakunt Malhotra to managing director of Asia. Prior to his promotion, Shakunt was vice president of Asia operations.

NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG

* Belgian operator Telenet hopes it can still take over VOO to get more share in the south of the country, Datanews reports, citing CEO John Porter. The news comes shortly after a report that Nethys conditionally sold a majority stake in subsidiary Voo to Providence Equity Partners Inc., however so far the process is still "very unclear."

* Telenet expanded the network for more than 3 million connectable houses and companies in Flanders and Brussels to internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second as part of the large-scale investment project called De Grote Netwerf.

* KPN NV considered selling its subsidiary XS4ALL Internet BV earlier this year, but decided to look for new co-investors, Emerce reports. The XS4ALL action committee is reportedly very disappointed and wants to start a crowdfunding campaign in early November to set up a new provider.

* Netherlands-headquartered Altice Europe intends to reduce its share capital by canceling treasury shares. The company's board resolved to cancel 200,000,000 common shares, which will become effective after the two-month creditor opposition period in accordance with Dutch law and the amendment of the Altice's articles of association at a general meeting on Nov. 6.

NORDIC COUNTRIES

* Norway will not impede Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. from building the country's 5G network, Reuters reports, citing a statement from Nikolai Astrup, a Norwegian cabinet minister. The final decision on working with Huawei will be left to telecom operators. State-owned Telenor ASA will choose its 5G supplier this year in preparation for the planned 2020 commercial rollout, according to the same Reuters report. Telenor rolled out its 5G pilot in Elverum county and will expand the pilot to Oslo and eight other municipalities by year-end.

* Modern Times Group Mtg AB signed an esports measurement deal with Nielsen Holdings PLC for its portfolio companies ESL Gaming GmbH and DreamHack AB. The agreement is intended to strengthen brand profiles and investor confidence in the two esports companies.

* Telia Co. AB unit Telia Norge AS reached a fiber supply deal with ATB-Nett covering support to remote mobile masts. The deal includes base stations located in mountainous and deep fjord areas in the counties of Sogn & Fjordane, Agder, Telemark and Buskerud.

* Sinch AB said it is primed to buy Paris-based cloud solutions company myelefant SAS in a cash deal worth about €18.5 million. The deal value will carry additional cash earnings of up to €3 million by 2021 if myelefant meets certain gross profit targets.

* Castik Capital Partners GmbH acquired AddSecure, a provider of premium solutions for secure data and critical communications from investment firm Abry Partners Inc. The financial details were undisclosed.

SOUTHERN EUROPE

* Google LLC teamed up with the School of Management at the Politecnico University of Milan to create a free tool to evaluate a company's readiness for artificial intelligence. The Machine Learning Checkup tool provides a customized report that would suggest benefits and best applications of AI on business processes.

* Telecom Italia presented Enel Open Fiber's shareholders with a list of funds that could buy into the latter, in line with plans to create a single fiber network in Italy, Reuters reports, citing three sources. Another source said the Italian telco was considering creating a special purpose vehicle where infrastructure funds may join in to invest in Enel Open Fiber.

* Sky Italia SRL rolled out a version of the Sky Q platform that can be accessed over fiber broadband, Digital TV Europe reports. The new Sky Q Fibra service will be available to users who cannot or do not prefer to install a satellite dish. Comcast Corp. unit Sky Ltd. owns Sky Italia.

* Greek pay TV operator Hellenic Company for Telecommunications and Telematic Applications SA, or Forthnet, reported consolidated total revenues of €133.5 million for the first half, or 7.5% lower than year-ago figures. The drop in revenue is due to a decrease in the number of Forthnet's retail customers.

EASTERN EUROPE

* A1 Hrvatska is planning to roll out a new streaming service in 2020, Broadband TV News reports, citing Poslovni. The Croatian operator is reportedly testing a new TV platform with a new personalized user interface prior to the launch. A1 Hrvatska is a unit of América Móvil SAB de CV's Telekom Austria Group.

* Wildlife and nature-themed channel Love Nature 4K has been fully localized in Russia, Broadband TV News reports. Love Nature 4K is a joint venture between Canada's Blue Ant Media Inc. and Smithsonian Networks.

* The Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania blocked access to nine sites for illegally distributing TV content in the country, Broadband TV News reports, citing a statement.

* Tele2 AB unit Tele2 Russia teamed up with VTB Bank PJSC to roll out VTB Mobile, a mobile virtual network operator service, Telecompaper reports.

FEATURED NEWS

Hires and Fires Europe: Archant CEO, COO stepping down; Sky Italia names new commercial chief: Archant Ltd. CEO Jeff Henry and COO Brian McCarthy are leaving the British publishing company, while Sky Italia SRL appointed Simone Lo Nostro its new chief commercial officer.

Accenture maintains M&A mantra, says no plans for big deals: "We've always said that we could do a larger acquisition, but it would really need to make sense for us," CEO Julie Sweet said during the company's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call.

FEATURED RESEARCH

Broadcast Investor: Broadcast streaming stations grow on some OTT services; others staying away: Live local broadcast stations are still being picked up by many virtual multichannel providers, but others such as Sling TV are bypassing costly carriage fees by focusing on cable networks and other perks.

RECENT EARNINGS

Accenture hikes dividend as fiscal Q4 profit beats estimates: Revenues rose year over year to $11.06 billion in the fiscal quarter ended Aug. 31, from $10.50 billion in the year-ago period.

Anne Freier, Amanda Kelly, Marieke Pijnappels and Gerard O'Dwyer contributed to this report.

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