NOM to buy Telbank and move closer to Tel-Energo

Andrzej Arendarski, the president of the independent telecoms provider NOM, yesterday announced that his company will place an offer to acquire a majority stake in Telbank. This is a telecoms operator which specializes in servicing the needs of the financial sector. The National Bank of Poland, which owns 74% of shares in the company, is legally obliged to sell them by the end of the year. Analysts place the value of the company at $100 million. This purchase is part of larger plans towards consolidating small telecom companies into one group, which will probably be called the National Telecommunications Group (KGT). NOM plans to tighten its cooperation with Tel-Energo owned by the Polish Power Grid through a merger, or by creating a separate holding. NOM has decreased the price of its long distance connections by 10%, making it the second cheapest operator offering such calls. (Gazeta Wyborcza, pp. 1, 13; Parkiet, p. 5) M.M.