BERLIN â€" The Dutch telecommunications firm KPN may be discussing an estimated 5 billion-euro sale of its German mobile unit to Telefónica of Spain, but neither company would confirm Monday that they were talking.
Telefónica did confirm, however, that it was discussing a possible purchase of a German operator. KPN said it was looking for a buyer of its German unit, E-Plus, the fourth-largest mobile operator in Germany. And analysts said the talks were a continuation of discussions that Telefónica’s German unit, O2, and KPN had held for the past decade about a possible merger.
‘‘Telefónica confirms that negotiations are taking place, not having reached any agreement in this respect yet,’’ the company said in a statement that referred to ‘‘speculation about its possible involvement in a deal’’ but did not refer specifically to E-Plus or KPN.
Telefónica has been looking to combine O2 Germany, the third-largest operator, with E-Plus to create a challenger to rival T-Mobile Germany and Vodafone Germany, which together account for more than half of the German market.
Such a merger would reduce the number of mobile carriers in Germany to three from four, so it could face close antitrust scrutiny.
‘‘A major stumbling block to the deal proceeding is getting regulatory approval,’’ said James Allison, an analyst at IHS Electronics & Media.
KPN, which is based in The Hague, had earlier in the day confirmed that it was in talks to sell E-Plus, but had not identified the potential buyer.
‘‘KPN confirms it is in talks on the sale of its mobile operations in Germany,’’ the Dutch company said in its statement. ‘‘At this stage the outcome is not yet clear.’’
KPN shares in Amsterdam closed 2.5 percent higher on the news Monday.
KPN said last year that it was reviewing options for E-Plus and Base, a carrier it owns in Belgium, but no news followed. With almost 24 million customers in Germany, E-Plus controls about 16 percent of the market. It had sales of ¤3.4 billion, or $4.5 billion, last year.
The talks were first reported earlier in the day by The Financial Times, which said Telefónica and KPN were in advanced discussions in a deal that valued E-Plus at ¤5 billion.
Ward Snijders, a spokesman for KPN, declined to comment on the selling price.
Carlos Winzer, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service in Madrid, said KPN’s mobile business in Germany could sell for 5 billion to 10 billion euros, based on similar recent sales in Europe. Operators are generally valued at a multiple of 5 to 10 times their earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a measure of pretax profitability.
Mr. Winzer said a sale of E-Plus to Telefónica could reduce the damaging price competition in the German market, which has stymied the growth of both carriers.
Mr. Allison, at IHS, said O2 and KPN had been in on-again, off-again talks for almost a decade on combining their German units, but failed to agree on which company would hold a majority in the merged entity.
The bargaining position of KPN weakened in 2010, Mr. Allison said, when E-Plus bid for but failed to acquire additional spectrum needed to introduce fast mobile services using Long Term Evolution technology, or LTE.
