Finland's No. 2 telecom operator Elisa will bid for smaller rival Saunalahti, boosting its position in the fiercely competitive Finnish mobile phone market, Elisa said on Thursday. Its all-share bid valued at 320 million euros ($385 million) trumps an earlier 295 million euro offer by Novator Finland, which agreed however to sell its Saunalahti holding of at least 36 percent to Elisa.
The company will by late August offer one of its own shares for 5.6 Saunalahti shares. It said the bid would give shareholders a premium of about 27 percent on the average volume weighted share price over the last 12 months.