Kosovo’s new coalition government will not privatise incumbent PTK this year, according to the head of the Policy and Monitoring Unit of Public Enterprises.
Ramaden Sejdiu said that, while the sale is necessary, it will not take place before PTK is…
Kosovo’s new coalition government will not privatise incumbent PTK this year, according to the head of the Policy and Monitoring Unit of Public Enterprises.
Ramaden Sejdiu said that, while the sale is necessary, it will not take place before PTK is modernised and its value therefore increased, local news agency Kosovapress reported.
The unit, part of the Ministry of Economic Development, was not immediately available for comment.
A source familiar with the previous privatisation process, called off in December 2013 after parliamentarians were unable to agree on the planned sale of a 75% stake, said he does not think a new process will take place in the “near future”.
The Axos Capital-led consortium which had won the tender process with a €277m (US$380m) bid subsequently threatened the government with legal action, describing the decision to scrap the process as “totally unacceptable by any standards”.
The offer from Axos, a Hamburg-based investment firm, and the US’ Najafi Companies well surpassed the sole other bid of €150m (US$206m) by Lebanon’s M1.
The sale, which would have included only the telecoms and not the postal businesses of PTK, had initially been expected to close in summer 2014.
Fully state-owned PTK is considered to be one of the country’s most profitable companies with over a million mobile subscribers.
An earlier privatisation attempt was cancelled in late 2011 following corruption allegations against senior management.
Kosovo lawmakers approved the new coalition government in early December 2014, ending a six-month political stalemate. The administration is headed by Isa Mustafa, head of the conservative Democratic League of Kosovo. Former prime minister Hashim Thaci, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party of Kosovo, is now first deputy prime minister and foreign minister.
