Greece’s OTE has said it is unwilling to acquire the 46% of shares in the Romanian incumbent telco Romtelecom it does not already own.
ZF reports that its decision was made known in a letter to the Romanian Ministry of Communications and that OTE will be notified of the Romanian position by the end of the week.
OTE, which is backed by Deutsche Telekom, has decided not to buy the 46% stake in Romtelecom still held by the Romanian state due to the continuing economic crisis in the region and OTE’s current strategy of reducing financial exposure to liability.
It now remains to be seen if the Romanian state will float its stake or seek out another investor.
In a separate though related development, OTE has recommended that Romtelecom merge with the mobile operator Cosmote, which is jointly owned by OTE (70%) and Romtelecom (30%).
