Orange Belgium moved into the home straight in a prolonged bid to acquire a majority stake in cable operator VOO, targeting completion by end-June after the European Commission (EC) accepted commitments to remedy competition concerns.

The conditional approval of the €1.8 billion deal will see the Orange subsidiary acquire 75 per cent of VOO’s capital less one share from current owner Nethys.

It will also give Orange control over provider Brutele, which markets its fixed telecoms services under the VOO brand in certain regions, the EC noted in a statement.

The EC began probing the proposed deal in mid-2022 over competition concerns, but stated a network access deal Orange struck with rival Telenet had remedied the issue.

Approval of Orange’s move is “conditional upon full compliance” with a reciprocal pledge over network access with Telenet, a deal which fully addressed the EC’s concerns, it explained.

In its own statement on the matter, Orange Belgium CEO Xavier Pichon said the deal could be “a major step”, enabling it to “operate a very high-speed network in Wallonia and part of Brussels” and advance its “convergent multi-gigabit strategy at a national level”.