According to National Property Fund (NPF) vice-chairman Pavel Kuta, nine potential bidders have so far asked for the information memorandum, including Swisscom, TDC, Vodafone, TeliaSonera and Telefonica. Investors can ask for the memorandum until January 21. The deadline for preliminary bids has been set for February 3. A buyer should be picked by the end of March. Source: Reuters
We regard the number of potential investors is relatively high nevertheless it may not indicate their real interest. We regard Vodafone as a serious investor; however the company is mainly interested in the mobile business (Eurotel). Swisscom and TDC have already expressed their interested while TDC considers new share issue to finance the acquisition. We have spoken to TeliaSonera yesterday and were told that its interest in information memorandum is normal way of monitoring situation on the telco market and should not change company’s future plans. Telefonica told us earlier that it focuses on Spain, Portugal, South America while the Czech republic is not its main target.
In other news, today, the Finance Minister is again going to present the advantages of the sale of Austria’s stake in Telekom Austria via capital markets back in December 2004 to the cabinet.
Separately, already more than 130,000 customers are using ADSL services provided by Cesky Telecom and Eurotel. Of these 100,000 are Cesky Telecom clients, and thus achieving the goal the company had set in the middle of the year.
Tomáš Gatěk, Patria Finance