Czech FinMin Sees SPT Sale Start Soon
Ministry spokesman Libor Vacek told Reuters he saw a good chance that an adviser will be chosen this year to organise the sale of the state's remaining 51 percent stake in SPT, and the transaction will be completed in the first months of 2000.
Vacek said the Finance Ministry has prepared several options on how to sell the stake in the country's largest domestic telecoms company, but is not recommending any particular solution. He said one option is to sell the whole stake to the TelSource consortium of Swiss Telecom (SCMZn.S and Dutch KPN which won a 27 percent stake in a 1995 government tender for $1.32 billion. KPN has already gathered an additional six percent stake from the free float in SPT Telecom a.s. through a government voucher privatisation programme early in the 1990s. The other options, Vacek said, include a direct sale of the stock on capital markets or the combination of the first two alternatives.
The Transport and Telecoms Ministry has repeatedly said it would try to block a fast selloff of SPT before its monopoly ends, which it is scheduled to do in January 2001. It has said that a regulatory framework must be completed before the sell-off, expected to be the biggest privatisation ever in the country, starts. SPT posted 9-month net profit of 4.5 billion crowns, up 11 percent from the same period of last year. It is the largest company by market capitalisation on the Prague Stock Exchange at roughly $4.7 billion dollars, or 166 billion crowns.
Vacek said the Finance Ministry has prepared several options on how to sell the stake in the country's largest domestic telecoms company, but is not recommending any particular solution. He said one option is to sell the whole stake to the TelSource consortium of Swiss Telecom (SCMZn.S and Dutch KPN which won a 27 percent stake in a 1995 government tender for $1.32 billion. KPN has already gathered an additional six percent stake from the free float in SPT Telecom a.s. through a government voucher privatisation programme early in the 1990s. The other options, Vacek said, include a direct sale of the stock on capital markets or the combination of the first two alternatives.
The Transport and Telecoms Ministry has repeatedly said it would try to block a fast selloff of SPT before its monopoly ends, which it is scheduled to do in January 2001. It has said that a regulatory framework must be completed before the sell-off, expected to be the biggest privatisation ever in the country, starts. SPT posted 9-month net profit of 4.5 billion crowns, up 11 percent from the same period of last year. It is the largest company by market capitalisation on the Prague Stock Exchange at roughly $4.7 billion dollars, or 166 billion crowns.
