France Telecom, Kulczyk Holding bide time over next TPSA share acquisition

The State Treasury is unsure whether France Telecom (FT), in consortium with Kulczyk Holding, will use its option to acquire an additional 2.5% of TPSA shares. If it does, FT would have to pay the average price for the last hundred trading sessions for the shares, plus an additional 25% bonus for each share, which would give the Treasury about zl. 550 million. "We have to wait until the end of the year until the option finishes, as so far we only had promises from Jan Kulczyk. Currently we are not conducting any talks on this issue," said Treasury Minister Wieslaw Kaczmarek. At present FT with Kulczyk Holding control a 47.5% stake in TPSA, while the state still owns about 20% of shares. "The option will be certainly be used, but this is unlikely until the end of the year. The new management of FT under president Thierry Breton has much more important issues to resolve first," said a person close to Kulczyk Holding. The State Treasury has not yet decided about the potential public offer of TPSA shares. "This issue is not closely linked to the FT decision to acquire more shares. We simply conduct analyses," explained Kaczmarek. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 7) M.M.