Bessel Kok, the former CEO of Belgian incumbent Belgacom, has reportedly called on the group to reignite merger talks with Dutch counterpart KPN.
The operator needs to accelerate its privatisation to ward itself against competitive threats, including…
Bessel Kok, the former CEO of Belgian incumbent Belgacom, has reportedly called on the group to reignite merger talks with Dutch counterpart KPN.
The operator needs to accelerate its privatisation to ward itself against competitive threats, including the evolving mobile market, Kok reportedly told local paper De Tijd.
Belgacom declined to comment on the report.
Merger negotiations held between Belgacom and KPN in 2001 fell through because the Belgian group had asked for too much, such as moving the combined group’s headquarters to Brussels, he reportedly added.
Back in April, Ad Scheepbouwer, who was then the outgoing CEO of KPN, said he expected consolidation would return to the European telco market in a few years as governments seek to cut debt and operators review their portfolio of assets.
“[Telcos] will start to rationalize. This will cause a certain consolidation, because they will have to start managing their assets lean and mean,” Scheepbouwer told Dow Jones at the time in an interview confirmed by the operator.
Scheepbouwer ended his ten-year reign at the helm of KPN on 6 April 2011.
He added that merger talks held before he took charge with Belgacom still made sense, but that it wasn’t “a topic right now”.
