R (cable operator)

In 1998, when the telecommunication industry was liberalized,^[jargon] Galicia, Spain adjudicated^[jargon] a contest to deploy wire in the area. At stake in the contest were three territorial demarcations: A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela and the rest of Galicia. The contracts for the three demarcations were won by the Galician Group of Companies for the Wire, Group Wire S.A.^{[citation needed]} The two group companies would later merge to form R Cable y Telecomunicaciones Galicia,^[1] S.A. when the demarcations were consolidated administratively.^{[citation needed]}

During 2006, R expanded its geographic operations, offering direct access services to small areas in Galicia such as Monforte de Lemos, Sarria, Sada, O Porriño and A Laracha. R also established agreements with other municipal councils like Xove, Burela, Vilalba, Ribadeo and Viveiro.

In July 2015, Euskaltel made a purchase offer of 1.155 billion euros, which was later increased to 1.190 billion euros in October 2015, when the sales agreement was signed.^[2][3]

In 2019, following Euskaltel's acquisition of R (R Cable y Telecomunicaciones Galicia, S.A.U.) and Telecable (Telecable de Asturias, S.A.U.), the former merged with the latter through absorption, forming a new company named R Cable y Telecable Telecomunicaciones, S.A.U.^[4]

R provides television, broadband Internet, and mobile telephony services to over 820,000 homes and companies in the Galicia region. The television service brings over a hundred channels to customers with the related signal decoder. It includes Oriel, a pay television service where customers can order films, sports programming, and television series. For customers without the signal decoder, R provides about two dozen channels. R also provides TDT channels and other channels for those with the DVB-C cable reception system. For Internet service, R offers various speed packages from 3 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s.^{[note 1]} R was one of first operators to offer 100 Mbit/s asymmetric speeds in Spain.^{[citation needed]} On 20 November 2007, the eighth anniversary of the company, R launched a mobile telephony service as a Mobile virtual network operator (i.e. it uses the antenna network of another company). The service went live on 3 December, and has garnered 190,000 customers.^{[citation needed]}

R has had numerous changes in ownership, including 25 major shareholding exchanges.^{[citation needed]} One of its most important changes was in September 2008, when Caixanova, NCG Banco's predecessor, bought the 35.44% held by Unión Fenosa (which was acquired by Gas Natural), which gave Caixanova a 66.24% share.^{[citation needed]}

In April 2010, British private equity firm CVC Capital Partners acquired a 35% stake in R.^[1][5] In November, CVC exercised an option to increase its stake to 70%^[6] in an agreement in which the current shareholders looked for "to guarantee the future of the Galicia City of the project, keeping its current social headquarters".^{[need quotation to verify]} In February 2014, CVC acquired the remaining 30% of the stock from NCG Banco.^{[7][8][better source needed]} In November 2015, Euskaltel acquired R.

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  A Mundo-R telephone booth in Vigo.

• Cogent Communications
• Euskaltel – Basque telecommunications company, owner of R
• Tata Communications
• Telecable – Asturian telecommunications company, also subsidiary of Euskaltel

• Official website (in Spanish)
• R cable portfolio at CVC Capital Partners