Bulgarian Network Up for Sale

Four mobile phone networks are reported to be considering a bid to takeover Bulgaria's GSM network, MobilTel. The Austrian magazine, Profil said that Vodafone, TeliaSonera, Telenor and Telekom Austria are the interested parties and they could pay around $1.6 billion for the company.

Mobiltel is owned by a consortium made of Austria's third biggest bank BAWAG, Management Trust Holding, a fund of the Taus family, financial company Kordt und Partner and family trust MC-Privatstiftung.

"It was always clearly the case for us, that we would not keep up our involvement forever," said board chairman Herbert Cordt.

MobilTel was reported as having approximately 1.8 million subscribers and made a profit of US$$126.6 million on sales of US$400 million. The investment group paid US$1.32 billion for MobiTel back in March last year after the company was sold by the Bulgarian Transport and Telecommunications Ministry. Making such a hefty profit in just 12 months on their investment, in a market where company valuations have generally fallen, may lead to compliants that the company was sold "on the cheap" by the Bulgarian government."

Posted to the site on 25th March 2003