Summary

  • Apax-advised funds have agreed to buy Warburg Pincus-advised funds’ stake in Odido; the announced deal still has closing conditions.
  • A completed equipment replacement can reduce capital spending while site access, fibre access and service obligations continue.

By the first quarter of 2025, Odido had replaced 92% of the radio equipment in its switch from Huawei to Ericsson, according to S&P Global Ratings. The Dutch operator was approaching the end of a costly job. In June that year, the rating agency expected capital expenditure to fall towards 15% of revenue, from more than 25% in recent years. That was a forecast, not a subsequent audit of the spending. But it identifies the question behind the company’s next ownership change: where does the money go when a big replacement programme ends?

On 16 October 2026, Odido announced that funds advised by Apax had agreed to acquire the stake held by funds advised by Warburg Pincus. Both have been shareholders since 2022. Apax is staying; its co-investor is preparing to leave. The financial terms were not disclosed, and the agreement remains subject to conditions including regulatory approvals and consultation with employee representatives.

For customers, management offers continuity: the same team and strategy, with continued backing for the network, security and service. For the network itself, the distinction is more practical. Buying an existing shareholder’s stake pays for ownership. A new cash contribution to the operating company would be a different transaction. The announcement gives no amount for such a contribution or a new network budget.

The mast is only part of the bill

The equipment swap helps explain why a lower investment ratio need not mean an operator has stopped improving its network. Replacing radios is an unusually concentrated expense. Once it is largely done, a comparison with the peak years can be misleading. S&P’s June 2025 analysis supplies that historical context; it does not tell us what Apax has budgeted for 2026.

Nor does finishing the radios finish the network bill. Odido’s fixed services use access agreements with outside fibre providers. On the mobile side, Cellnex announced in July 2025 that the two companies had renewed and expanded their infrastructure arrangements, extending Odido’s access to sites. Owning equipment and securing the right to use a location are separate jobs. The announced partnership also envisaged new sites, without providing a completed rollout tally.

There is plenty of traffic for those arrangements to carry. ACM’s first-quarter 2026 figures put Odido at 25–30% of mobile subscriptions but 50–55% of mobile data use. That imbalance makes capacity consequential; it does not, by itself, demonstrate congestion.

The national picture has also moved on. In a release on 20 October, after this article first appeared, ACM reported that second-quarter mobile traffic rose 4.7% to 856 million GB, following a 1.4% fall in the first quarter. These are Dutch market totals, not Odido’s growth rate. For fibre, the same release separates 9.18 million connections reaching property boundaries, 6.69 million reaching meter cupboards and 3.75 million actually in use. A cable passing a home, a physical connection and a paying service are not interchangeable measures of a network’s progress.

Three sums, three different stories

The deal’s reported valuation is another number to keep in its proper place. In September, Reuters, citing the Financial Times, reported a valuation of about €6.5 billion. October’s announcement did not confirm it. It is not a disclosed price for Warburg Pincus’s stake. The €5.1 billion enterprise value announced in 2021 concerns the earlier purchase of the business; subtracting one figure from the other would not calculate the investors’ return.

Prospect News’s public archive lists July headlines for a minimum €1.5 billion term loan B launch, followed by an extended €1.58 billion facility. The headlines establish reported financing activity, not what the proceeds funded. They cannot turn the October share purchase into an announced network investment.

The useful follow-up will therefore be less glamorous than a takeover price: which upgrades get approved, which access contracts are renewed, and whether capacity and repair performance improve. Apax already knows the business. The next test is how it chooses to fund the network after the unusually expensive radio replacement—not simply how much it pays to own more of Odido.

Updated 26 October 2026: added ACM’s 20 October release and clarified the difference between the conditional acquisition agreement, network spending and financing reports. The original article URL and publication date are retained.