PTK Centertel shares going Orange
By : Roseanne Gerin
France Telecom's shares of mobile operator PTK Centertel will be transferred to its mobile unit Orange by the end of the year, a France Telecom spokeswoman said last week. But the French operator has not yet decided whether it will recast Centertel's mobile service under the Orange brand.
"All mobile assets of France Telecom will be included in Orange," said the Paris-based spokeswoman, who requested anonymity. The transfer of Centertel's shares to Orange depended on Poland's telecom regulatory conditions, the spokeswoman said.
Orange held its initial public offering last Tuesday. According to the company's prospectus, France Telecom's mobile phone holdings can be transferred to Orange "once the necessary conditions are met and when the negotiations with France Telecom's partners have been completed with success." The move is part of France Telecom's pan-European strategy to consolidate its mobile phone activities under a single company. Orange is Europe's second-largest mobile phone operator after Vodafone.
In Poland, France Telecom owns 34% of PTK Centertel, which operates its service under the brand name Idea, through its France Telecom Mobiles Internationales. Fixed-line operator Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA) holds the remaining 66% stake.
Jacek Kalinowski, the spokesman for PTK Centertel, said he did not know when France Telecom would transfer its Centertel shares to Orange and that he had not received any information from the French firm. He added that the transfer could take place after the third fiscal quarter of the year when France Telecom and consortium partner Kulczyk Holding would likely increase their stake in TPSA. The France Telecom-Kulczyk Holding consortium purchased a 35% stake of TPSA from the government last July. The consortium has an option to acquire a further 10% stake of TPSA in July and an additional 6% in September, which would give it a total 51% of the shares in the fixed-line telecom operator.
A total takeover of Centertel by Orange, however, was unlikely, Kalinowski said. He added that TPSA intended to retain its 66% stake in Centertel.
Michal Potocki, the deputy spokesman for TPSA, said that since France Telecom has dedicated most of its other mobile holding to Orange, "some decision on Centertel should be taken in the coming weeks and months."
"We are going to change our structure and organization and think about what to do," Potocki added.
France Telecom still has to decide whether to rename Centertel once the share transfer to Orange has been completed. France Telecom's spokeswoman said the renaming of local mobile operators in which the French operator holds stakes, depends on each market. "For the moment it will not (be the case) in every market because the conditions are not the same," she said. "It's easier to change the (existing) brand in some countries if it's not well known."
Of the country's three mobile operators, Centertel is the smallest with about 1.7 million mobile subscribers, Kalinowski said.
Anna Krajewska, France Telecom's spokeswoman in Warsaw, said Centertel could benefit from Orange's technological know-how once the transfer was completed. Centertel holds one of the three third-generation mobile-phone licenses issued by the government at the end of last year.
