Dutch Auction Analysis / From Dow Jones
With the auction of five Dutch third-generation mobile licenses now well underway, analysts said Tuesday that the auction is expected to progress in a somewhat predictable way.
Analysts said Royal KPN NV (KPN), the largest Dutch mobile operator, and its second-largest rival, Vodafone AirTouch PLC (VOD) unit Libertel NV (N.LBR), are bidding against British Telecommunications PLC's (BTY) Dutch unit Telfort for two licenses that represent larger bandwidths than the remaining three.
"British Telecom will most likely be the one that drops out of that bidding first," said analyst Philip Scholte of Van der Hoop Effectenbank.
"KPN Mobile and Libertel both have more customers and more money invested in their current networks, so those large licenses are worth more to them." ...
"At any rate, British Telecom has made an internal estimate for how much that large channel is worth, and it won't go much past that figure in order to pester KPN," he said. "They won't risk a scenario where KPN decides to give up and start bidding for one of the smaller licenses because prices are too high."
Analyst Martijn den Dryver of Bank Insinger agreed, saying that it's impossible to know what British Telecom's calculation for the value of the larger licenses looks like.
He said that after British Telecom is finished bidding against Libertel and KPN, it will then begin bidding for one of the smaller licenses, eventually bumping VersaTel out of the auction.
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