Telekom Slovenije Privatisation Moves Step Closer

To read the full article, please choose one of the following options:

The race is hotting up for the prize of a 49.13% stake in Telekom Slovenije. With the state currently in control of a majority 62.5% stake in the incumbent operator (via interests through other state-held funds, its indirect holding is actually 74%), it plans to part-privatise the operator leaving it in control of just 25% plus one share. Having received a number of applications, the Slovenian government has granted a "registered bidder" status to the following prospective majority owners of Telekom Slovenije - Russian conglomerate Sistema, Croatia's T-HT, Hungarian incumbent Magyar Telekom (these last two are both owned by Deutsche Telekom), UAE-based Oger Telecom, Telecom Egypt and Skipti of Iceland, the parent company of local operator Simmin. Other bidders include a variety of equity funds such as Luxembourg-based Skywheeler, UK's Providence Equity, CEP III, a unit of the Carlyle Group, a UK-German consortium of Bain Capital and Axos Capital, SAC Private Capital and Apax Partners. All interested parties must produce a non-binding offer by mid-October with selected bidders then submitting final bids on the basis of due diligence, followed by the auction stage.