Telecoms groups eye Bulgaria
By Theodor Troev, Sofia, and Kerin Hope, Athens
Published: December 3 2000 19:14GMT | Last Updated: December 3 2000 19:16GMT
Five European telecoms operators are set to bid on December 15 for Bulgaria's second GSM mobile phone licence.
The public tender follows the collapse last July of a privatisation deal that linked the second mobile licence with the sale of BTC, the Bulgarian fixed-line operator.
The bidders are: Vodafone Bulgaria, a partnership between the UK group and United Bulgarian Bank, controlled by Greece's NBG; TIM International, the mobile arm of Telecom Italia; Fintour, a consortium formed by Sonera of Finland and Turkey's Turkcell; Rumeli Telsim, a Turkish consortium; and OTE, the Greek public telecoms operator.
The starting price for the 15-year licence is $40m and analysts have predicted the licence would sell for at least $100m.
Bulgaria is not expected to offer UMTS licences before the end of 2002, the deadline for full liberalisation of the telecoms sector.
But the government plans to make another attempt early next year to sell a 51 per cent stake in BTC. A deal agreed with KPN, the Dutch public operator, and OTE collapsed after 11 months of negotiations.
The Dutch-Greek consortium raised their bid for a controlling stake in the fixed-wire operation, together with a GSM licence, from $510 to $600m but failed to reach agreement on investment guarantees and details of the business plan. |
