Polish shareholders given green light to buy Polkomtel shares from TDC

"A meeting of representatives of Polkomtel's Polish shareholders with representatives of the Treasury Ministry took place on Thursday. The Ministry approved a plan whereby the Polish shareholders would buy the shares currently owned by TDC," said an anonymous source close to the transaction. TDC is selling 19.61% of Polkomtel's shares at EUR 214.04 each. Therefore, the total price of the block of shares would be EUR 860 million. "Purchasing the shares goes along with the political vision of creating a national operator. From the business point of view it is also justified as it is not worth giving up control of the company without a bonus," said DM BZ WBK analyst Paweł Puchalski. "It is good news that Polish shareholders are about to buy Polkomtel's shares," added Maciej Wiewiórski, a CDM Pekao analyst. Market watchers calculate that each of the companies interested would have to spend about zł.600 million on the investment. (Parkiet, p. 6) D.W.