Telekom Austria’s (TA) largest shareholder OeIAG is considering options for a major reshuffle of the telco’s assets to prepare the ground for a potential expansion with help from Carlos Slim.
According to a report in Austrian business paper…
Telekom Austria’s (TA) largest shareholder OeIAG is considering options for a major reshuffle of the telco’s assets to prepare the ground for a potential expansion with help from Carlos Slim.
According to a report in Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt, the state holding is looking into options to spin off the incumbent’s Eastern European assets into a new holding company. The article referred to “well informed circles”.
Such a scenario would enable Slim’s America Movil (AMX) to fund expansion of TA in Eastern Europe via a capital increase in the new holding, without affecting OeIAG’s position as largest shareholder of Telekom Austria.
OeIAG owns 28.4% of TA, while AMX has a 22.76% stake.
A spinoff of TA’s Eastern European assets had been rumoured previously, but the report indicates that now OeIAG, which recently got a new CEO who is also a TA board member, is considering this option.
TelecomFinance understands that no concrete steps for the creation of such a holding have been taken as yet, and it is only seen as a possible scenario at a later stage, should a situation arise in which this would make sense.
In an interview with TelecomFinance in July, TA CEO Hannes Ametsreiter had reiterated: “Eastern Europe is and remains to be our core region, and we will continue to assess opportunities there”.
In 2011 TA acquired Megalan and Spectrum Net in Bulgaria, and Croatia’s largest cable operator, B.net, but the telco is currently lacking the financial firepower to finance a bigger transaction.
A spokesperson for OeIAG refused to comment on the report.
