The National Property Fund said on Wednesday night that 25 investors had expressed interest in the Cesky Telecom privatization by yesterday’s deadline. This rather high number is encouraging, though it is bound to decline, since financial investors cannot bid on their own and have to team up with strategic investors, and (ii) not all of the 25 potential bidders will likely go on to further stages of the tender. There has been no information as to the identities of the bidders, though we expect some official or unofficial information of this kind in the coming days and weeks. Positive for the stock.
The potential bidders will next receive an information memorandum; the deadline for indicative bids is January 9, 2002. Government officials have indicated in the past that the tender could be canceled should the bidding prove too low.
Cesky Telecom released on Wednesday its proposal of end-user prices for 2002 (still subject to the regulator’s approval, which is likely for most of the prices proposed; changes will be effective February 2002). Call prices (long distance, local, international) will fall, but monthly subscription fees will be significantly increased. Although the higher monthly fees will be partially offset by a greater amount of “free minutes,” there will still be a substantial effective increase. We consider the proposed package of prices good for Cesky Telecom (the effective monthly fee increases are greater than we expected).
(Ondrej Datka)