Serbia Broadband

SBB - Serbia Broadband
Native name
 Српске кабловске мреже / Srpske kablovske mreže
LLC
Industry Telecommunication
Founded Kragujevac, Serbia (September 1, 2000 (2000-09-01))
Headquarters Belgrade, Serbia
Area served
 Serbia
Key people
 Dragan Šolak (President)
Goran Vasić (CEO)
Products Cable television
Broadband internet
Fixed telephony
Revenue Increase €130.62 million (2013)[1]
Increase -€7.88 million (2013)[1]
Total assets Increase €459.44 million (2013)[1]
Total equity Increase €220.80 million (2013)[1]
Owner Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Number of employees
 978[1]
Parent United Group
Website www.sbb.rs

Serbia Broadband (branded as SBB; full legal name: Serbia Broadband - Srpske kablovske mreže d.o.o.) is a cable television and broadband internet service provider in Serbia. A limited liability company, it is registered under the register code 17280554 in the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR).[2]

In 2006, SBB launched TotalTV, its DTH satellite television platform.

With more than 700,000 customers and with more than 60% of network coverage, it is the dominant provider of broadband internet and cable television in Serbia.

Ownership

In 2007 Serbia Broadband was acquired by Mid Europa Partners, which simultaneously purchased Telemach Slovenia followed by acquiring Telemach Bosnia and Herzegovina shortly afterwards, cable television and broadband internet providers in Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, respectively. Mid Europa then created United Group, a subsidiary to control its three new acquisitions in former Yugoslavia, with European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) holding a minority stake in the newly created subsidiary. In the case of Serbia Broadband, the owners legally controlled it via the Amsterdam-based Adria Cable B.V.

In October 2013 American private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) purchased the majority stake in United Group from Mid Europa Partners for US$1.3 billion.[3] thus gaining control of Serbia Broadband. Once the new owners took over, they began legally controlling Serbia Broadband through the Amsterdam-based Adria Serbia Holdco B.V.

Logo from 2000 until 2012.

Criticism

During the majority of its presence on the market SBB has been criticized for lack of service reliability and inadequate customer relationship management practices.[4][5] A notable example was when on 29 March 2015 a serious system outage occurred at around 11:30 AM CET, leaving most users without the Internet, landline and certain digital television services for hours afterwards.[6] The call centre was immediately clogged with large amount of calls, and the company gave no public information in the following hours. It was not until 4:52 PM that the first official statement was announced on SBB's official Facebook page,[7] and soon afterwards on Twitter.[8] At that time most of the related issues had been fixed.[9] The company did not give an apology for or further explanation of the incident.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Основни подаци из консолидованог финансијског извештаја за 2013. годину. Agencija za privredne registre Srbije (in Serbian). Retrieved 2 July 2014.
  2. ↑ APR search
  3. ↑ Despotović, S. "Amerikancima polovina kablovskog tržišta". politika.rs. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  4. ↑ http://blog.b92.rs/text/20792/SBB-ili-Samo-Bez-Brige-o-klijentima---prvi-deo/
  5. ↑ http://www.nisamovca.com/firmapost.aspx?firmaID=42
  6. ↑ http://forum.benchmark.rs/showthread.php?277774-SBB-Generalna-diskusija/page519
  7. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/mojsbb/posts/1043054585709328
  8. ↑ https://twitter.com/mojsbb/status/582187359657160704
  9. ↑ http://forum.benchmark.rs/showthread.php?277774-SBB-Generalna-diskusija/page521

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, February 29, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.