Spain’s Telefonica is expected to finalise a deal to buy Telecom Italia’s German broadband operator, HanseNet, within the next few days, reports Reuters. According to a report in Spanish newspaper, El Economista, sources say the sale price will be around EUR900 million (US$1.33 billion), slightly below analysts’ valuation of the business of between EUR1 billion and EUR1.5 billion. The Spanish giant had confirmed on Friday that it was close to completing a deal, which is likely to see it combine HanseNet with own German broadband unit Telefonica Deutschland (recently merged with its mobile unit, O2 Germany). It also said it was in talks to acquire Spanish pay-TV firm Digital+.

HanseNet is one of Telecom Italia’s assets that the debt-laden Italian incumbent has been looking to sell this year after earlier announcing it was looking to raise as much as EUR3 billion by selling assets it deems “non-core.” HanseNet – which trades under the ‘Alice’ brand – has around 2.3 million customers in Germany. As well as interest from Telefonica (which holds an indirect 10 percent stake in Telecom Italia via a holding company), HanseNet had also been linked with Vodafone, which was reportedly interested in merging it with its own German fixed-line subsidiary, Arcor (the country’s second largest broadband provider behind Deutsche Telekom’s T-Online).