Austrian businessman Ronny Pecik is looking to sell its recently-increased stake in incumbent Telekom Austria (TA) to Vimpelcom and Turkish operator Turkcell in two to five years, wrote Austrian magazine Format without citing sources.
The magazine said…
Austrian businessman Ronny Pecik is looking to sell its recently-increased stake in incumbent Telekom Austria (TA) to Vimpelcom and Turkish operator Turkcell in two to five years, wrote Austrian magazine Format without citing sources.
The magazine said Pecik hopes to make a 30% profit from such a transaction.
But a source close to Russian telco Vimpelcom told Reuters that the Russian company was not interested in the TA stake. Contacted by TelcomFinance, Vimpelcom declined to comment.
Earlier this week, RPR Privatstiftung, owned by Pecik, acquired a call option over 5.4% of Telekom Austria shares.
But it is now reported that Pecik’s investment group, which includes Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris, controls approximately 20% of TA. Sawiris is a shareholder in Vimpelcom.
A Telekom Austria spokeswoman told TelecomFinance that the company has only been informed of the call option.
However, TA CEO Hannes Ametsreiter was quoted telling an investor conference on Friday that new shareholders have come on board.
Reports that Pecik was looking to acquire up to 20% of TA first surfaced in September when it was suggested that he may be working with Sawiris for a hostile bid over TA.
Telekom Austria was reported in early October to be set to hire BoA Merrill Lynch to help ward off that takeover bid.
