Serbian telecom bids for OTE’s Albanian subsidiary
Serbia’s state-run Telekom Srbija has made an offer to acquire Telekom Albania as it looks to expand in the Balkans, the Belgrade-based Vecernje Novosti reported on Monday, citing sources.
Telekom Albania has a 39 percent market share in Albania’s telecommunications sector and is 99.79 percent owned by Greece’s OTE.
Two more companies, the Czech Republic’s PPF Group and Bulgaria’s Vivacom are also vying to acquire Albania Telekom, the report said.
It gave no further details. Telekom Srbija is also a majority shareholder in Bosnia’s second-largest telecom operator, Telekom Srpske, and controls Montenegrin mobile operator M:Tel.
The consolidated net profit of the Serbian operator in 2017 stood at 14.7 billion dinars (124.48 million euros), down from 14.95 billion dinars the year before.
The company’s investments fell by 6.2 percent in 2017 to 26.7 billion dinars.
Serbia tried to sell a majority stake in Telekom Srbija in 2015 as it sought to offload some state assets, but rejected all six offers as too low.
[Reuters]
