Deputy Finance Minister Tomas Potmesil said last night that negotiations with TeleDanmark on the sale of the government’s 51% stake in Ceske radiokomunikace will continue until the end of the week. Cabinet can therefore not decide on the issue before next week (a decision had been expected this Wednesday). Since a postponement of one week does not significantly alter the Ceske radiokomunikace privatization story, we do not expect it to have much impact on the stock today. According to earlier reports, TeleDanmark has offered to pay USD 300 mil. (approx. CZK 745 per share) for the government’s stake.
The current negotiations reportedly include a scenario in which TeleDanmark would buy only the telecommunication business and the government would sell the TV and radio signal transmission business separately. Such a scenario is somewhat unexpected, but we assume that the government would consider this manner of sale only if it meant higher overall revenues; we do not expect the market to respond.
(Ondřej Daťka)