In Brief
OTE hires advisers to sell FYROM unit Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE), Greece’s biggest phone company, hired two banks to advise on the planned sale of its Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) unit. NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd and EFG Telesis Finance AEPEY will advise on the sale of Cosmofon Mobile Telecommunications AD Skopje, according to an e-mailed statement yesterday from Cosmote SA, a wholly owned unit of Athens-based OTE. Cosmofon is being sold after Deutsche Telekom AG, which also has a phone business in the former Yugoslav republic, took a stake in OTE. Hellenic Telecom Organization Chief Executive Officer Panagis Vourloumis said on August 28 that because the two companies together control 90 percent of the market in the country of 2 million people, OTE «has to get out.» Cosmofon added 21,000 new clients in the second quarter, for a total of 640,000 at the end of June, a 24 percent increase from a year earlier. The unit had operating income before depreciation and amortization of 8.4 million euros ($12 million) in the first half and revenue of 30 million euros. The company paid 10 million euros earlier this year for a high-speed wireless license in FYROM. Makedonski Telekom AD, the largest phone company in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, is a unit of Magyar Telekom Nyrt, which is controlled by Deutsche Telekom, Europe’s biggest phone company. (Bloomberg) J&P Avax signs deal to build complex J&P Avax SA, Greece’s second-largest construction company, signed contracts with OTE SA’s real estate unit and Aldi Group, Germany’s biggest discount food retailer. Avax will build a 19-million-euro ($27 million) office and retail store complex for OTE Real Estate SA, according to a statement on the Athens-based company’s website yesterday. The company also said it will build 10 supermarkets for Aldi by the end of the year. It didn’t give any financial details on that contract. (Bloomberg) Building slows Greek construction activity, measured by the number of new building permits, in June fell 16 percent from a year earlier, the National Statistics Service (NSS) said in a statement. The NSS said 6,293 new permits were issued nationwide in June, corresponding to 1.56 billion square meters, versus 7,495 permits a year earlier, which covered 1.88 billion square meters. A total of 32,666 new permits were issued around the country in the January-June period, down 18.4 percent from the year-earlier period, amounting to 8.567 billion square meters, the NSS said. (Reuters) Joblessness up Turkey’s estimated unemployment rate rose to 9 percent in the three months to the end of July from 8.8 percent in the same period last year, the State Statistics Institute said yesterday. A survey based on interviews with nearly 86,000 people showed the number of jobless to have increased by 96,000 to 2,237,000, it said. High unemployment and huge unregistered activity remain a major challenge for the Turkish government despite several years of strong growth in the wake of two severe financial crises in 1999 and 2001. (AFP)
