Cesky Telecom announced last night that its board of directors, meeting yesterday, decided to “revisit Cesky Telecom’s prior negotiating position” on the acquisition of the remaining 49% stake in Eurotel. CT will therefore seek to re-open negotiations with the Atlantic West consortium (Verizon Communications and AT&T) on the terms of the deal. The company cited the protection of shareholder value given “the recent disruption in the equity and debt markets” as the reason for its move.
The preliminary, non-binding agreement from July this year envisaged Cesky Telecom buying the 49% stake in Eurotel for CZK 57 bil. (USD 1.475 bil.). The market response then was negative, as the majority opinion was that the deal was expensive for CT (the stock lost 12% in the week following the announcement, vs. a 3.7% loss by the PX-50 index in the same week). Given this, the market might respond positively to CT seeking a better deal (even if its success is rather uncertain). We consider it unlikely that Cesky Telecom would pull out of the deal altogether (which we would see as long-term negative), hence the choice is mainly between the status quo and a better deal.
The one negative aspect of this news is that further negotiations would likely lead to a delay in launching the Cesky Telecom privatization tender, since completing the Eurotel deal is a precondition for the tender. This may dampen the positive impact of the news, or perhaps eliminate it. The overall market mood today will also be important.
(Ondřej Daťka)