Swisscom announced yesterday that it is no hurry to sell its stake in Cesky Telecom, the leading domestic fixed-line operator. This comes after TelSource (a 51/49 JV of KPN and Swisscom) announced on Friday its intention to sell its 27% stake in Cesky Telecom in an international offering.
Separately, the Czech IT Minister, V. Mlynar, said in an interview with the Financial Times that his ministry will propose three CT privatization scenarios to the Cabinet: (i) selling the state’s 51% stake in Cesky Telecom, (ii) selling only a minority stake, or (iii) selling Cesky Telecom’s stake in Eurotel, the No.1 domestic mobile operator.
While the first option seems largely to be preferred by the government, a lack of investor interest makes it unlikely at the moment, and similar holds for the second option. We expect that the Eurotel divestiture is the most unlikely option, since it would be significantly harmful for Cesky Telecom. For more details, see our report on CT dated September 16.
Jiří Soustružník