Slovenia’s new government will support plans to privatise Telekom Slovenije and 14 other state-controlled companies, Prime Minister Miro Cerar has assured.
Cerar, whose centre-left coalition cabinet took office a fortnight ago, told Reuters that the…
Slovenia’s new government will support plans to privatise Telekom Slovenije and 14 other state-controlled companies, Prime Minister Miro Cerar has assured.
Cerar, whose centre-left coalition cabinet took office a fortnight ago, told Reuters that the suspended privatisation process for the incumbent telco will restart within the coming days.
Cerar has spoken out against privatisations in the past but, in yesterday’s interview, said his government will pursue the 15 tabled processes to help meet its target, agreed with the EU, of reducing the budget deficit to 3% of GDP in 2015. This year, it stands at 4.5%.
The privatisations must be completed to prevent Slovenia from losing credibility, he was quoted as saying.
Cerar also confirmed that the government will not split Telekom Slovenije into infrastructure and service divisions ahead of the sale in order to retain control of the former.
The prime minister noted that, over the next few months, additional companies may be tabled for privatisation.
The previous government had planned to privatise Telekom Slovenije by the end of the year and hired Citi as an adviser. First round bids were received, reportedly from both strategic and financial investors, before the process was suspended in early September pending formal approval from the new government.
Bidders reportedly included Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, Russia’s MTS and Turkey’s Turkcell as well as private equity firms Apax, Bain Capital and Providence.
Matej Runjak, head of Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SDH), which is managing the privatisation processes, told TelecomFinance he is confident that the sale of the incumbent telco will be completed, saying “we are on the right track”.
Stressing that SDH wants to move quickly, Runjak said the process will ideally be finalised in the first quarter of next year.
The state controls 72.38% of shares in Telekom Slovenije, which has a market capitalisation on the Ljubljana bourse of €941.44m (US$1.19bn). The remaining shares are held by individual shareholders, local and foreign companies, institutional investors, brokerage houses and the company itself.
