Etisalat among four bidders shortlisted for Armentel sale

Gulf News, United Arab Emirates
June 23 2006

Reuters

Athens: Greek telecoms provider OTE said yesterday it shortlisted
four bidders, among them an Etisalat-led consortium, for the sale of
its 90 per cent stake in Armenian telecoms firm Armentel.

Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) and Vimpelcom, Russia’s largest and
second-largest mobile phone providers respectively, were invited to
take part in the next phase of the sale, Greece’s largest telecoms
group said.

It did not provide further details. Analysts said a disposal of the
Armentel stake makes sense as it does not fit in with OTE’s focus on
the Balkans.

"Armentel does not fit in with OTE’s regional expansion," said analyst
George Grigoriou at Eurocorp Securities.

Operations

He estimated the value of the stake at about 250 million euros. OTE
has operations in Romania and Serbia while its mobile arm Cosmote
has subsidiaries in Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Other shortlisted bidders included the consortium of Emirates
Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat), UAE-based investment house
Istithmar PJSC and Emergent Telecom Ventures (ETV), and another
consortium of VTEL Holdings and Knightsbridge Associates.

Armentel, the largest operator in Armenia with 321,000 subscribers,
had 7.1 million euros in net income in the first quarter of this year,
with revenues up 40 per cent to 32.2 million euros.

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