Deutsche Telekom (DT) is rumoured to be considering entering a bid to build a high-speed fibre-optic broadband network for Australia’s cities. The Australian press suggest that DT, Europe’s biggest telecoms company by revenues, has already lined up financial backers for a possible bid for the multi-billion project. A final decision on whether to join the competitive tender process awaits the release of bidding rules by a taskforce set up by Prime Minister John Howard’s government, the Sydney Morning Herald disclosed.
A bid from DT would be a setback for Telstra, the former government-owned telco. It has already been sidelined in the race for AUD1 billion (USD840 million) in government funding towards building a broadband network for rural areas - a job that went to a consortium that contains major rival Optus, the second-largest Australian telco by revenues.
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Deutsche Telekom (DT) has denied reports which suggest it is considering the sale of its US wireless arm T-Mobile USA. Press reports have claimed that private equity firm Blackstone, which is a 4.5% shareholder in the German telco, wants DT to offload its US operations. Rival wireless operator Alltel has just been sold to equity firms TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners(GSCP) for a total of USD27.5 billion. T-Mobile USA is the country’s fourth largest cellular operator, with 26 million subscribers at the end of March.
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Russian holding company Sistema, which owns a 52.8% stake in leading Russian cellco MTS, still sees a merger with German incumbent Deutsche Telekom (DT) as ‘the best for both sides,’ Sistema’s CEO Alexander Goncharuk told newspaper Handelsblatt, adding however that a deal was unlikely in the near future. ‘We think the combination of two such big companies would create a mega-concern with standing in the American, the European and the Asian market,’ Goncharuk said in the interview. ‘The biggest obstacle to such a merger is political opposition to such cross-border transactions and DT’s difficult situation at the moment,’ said Goncharuk, referring to the ongoing strike which has now entered its second week. He noted that Sistema was not actively pursuing a deal.
Sistema said last year that it would be interested in acquiring a stake in Deutsche Telekom via an asset swap, though it denied holding talks with the German telco. At the time German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck said the sale of the German government’s 15% stake in DT, and the 16% holding of state-owned KfW Bankengruppe, was not up for discussion. Goncharuk said in the interview with Handelsblatt that media reports in recent months regarding plans to swap MTS shares for DT’s Hungarian unit Magyar Telekom were mere speculation.
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Following the announcement of a 50% slump in first quarter profits, things got worse for the executive at beleagured German incumbent Deutsche Telekom (DT) as the union Ver.di revealed that staff had voted to strike and would walk out today. The trade union announced that more than 96% of its members had voted to strike in protest against DT’s plans to make staff work more hours for less wages at its T-Service unit, in return for fewer redundancies. Up to 20,000 staff are expected to down tools, a move that will affect services to corporate rather than domestic customers.
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DT considers Australian broadband possibility (Australia)
