Greek former monopoly telco OTE’s first-quarter net profit rose by a stronger-than-expected 28% on lower payroll costs and taxes, partly reflecting its corporate restructuring efforts over the past two years. CEO Panagis Vourloumis said in a statement: ‘In Greek fixed line, the cost cutting of the past two years is yielding results’. For the three months to 31 March, the company said net profit was EUR140.9 million (USD189.7 million) compared with EUR109.7 million in the same period a year earlier, while revenue rose 8.8% to EUR1.51 billion, up from EUR1.39 billion. Operating income before depreciation and amortisation (OIBDA) – which the company adopted in the first quarter last year to replace earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) – rose 9.6% year-on-year from EUR512.5 million to EUR561.7 million. The net profit figures were much higher than analyst expectations of EUR116 million, but turnover was in line with forecasts of EUR1.52 billion.
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Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, the chairman of Orascom Telecom, has announced that his telecoms holding vehicle Weather Investments will make an offer within the next two weeks to buy the 50%-minus-one-share that it does not already own in Greece’s largest alternative telco by revenues, Tellas. Egypt-based Weather Investments owns its 50%-plus-one-share interest in Tellas through its wholly owned subsidiary, Italian telco Wind Telecomunicazioni, whilst the remaining shares are held by PPC Telecommunications, a unit of Greek electricity company Public Power Corp (PPC). Earlier this year Weather acquired Greece’s third largest mobile operator by subscribers, TIM Hellas, and its subsidiary Q-Telecom, which provides GSM, fixed line and internet services, and Sawiris immediately proposed a plan to combine his new Greek assets with Tellas by the end of 2007 to create a new full-service competitor to incumbent telco OTE. Weather Investments is in advanced talks with PPC about buying its stake in Tellas, Sawiris told Reuters on Saturday. ‘We are currently planning to prepare an offer [in]…maybe two weeks maximum,’ he said, adding that ‘We have to come to a price which is fair,’ but declined to give a figure. If the acquisition is agreed, he plans to combine the three companies and expand their fixed line and broadband services, and possibly make further acquisitions: ‘We intend to put them under one roof…[Greece has the] lowest broadband penetration in western Europe…we could buy a cable company, a fibre-optic company; we could buy some of the ISPs.’ TIM Hellas and Q-Telecom are in the process of merging their operations
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Greek mobile operator Cosmote has launched a new series of business packages to respond fully to the specialised needs of its corporate customers for integrated communications services at affordable prices. It has unveiled six new Cosmote Business Plus packages. Cosmote Business Plus offers flat-rate for calls to mobile networks and low fees for fixed-line and inter-company calls for EUR 7 a month; Business Plus offers 100 free minutes a month for EUR 17.50 a month; Business Plus 200 offers 200 minutes a month free airtime for EUR 28 a month; Business Plus 300 offers 300 free minutes of airtime for EUR 39 a month; Business Plus 600 offers 600 free minutes for EUR 72 a month; and Business Plus 1000 offers 1,000 free minutes for EUR 114 a month. Cosmote has also launched the Cosmote Business to Fixed service, offering customers free airtime for calls to fixed networks at a small extra monthly fee. For between EUR 10 and EUR 12 extra a month, Cosmote Business Plus customers will get up to 1,000 free minutes for calls to fixed national networks.
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Greek mobile operator TIM Hellas and Vodafone Greece are moving to expand the pilot operation of a National Roaming service launched at start-2007. The service is now being made available to their pre-paid customers. The pilot National Roaming service is operating in the areas Cephalonia, Ithaki, Kalamata and the wider region of the Messinian Golf, as well as Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, South Serres and the islands of Crete, Karpathos, Kasos and AntiKithyra. The service operates between their 2G GSM networks and is available to pre-paid users with effect from 17 May.
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- August 15th, 2006
- 3:00 pm
The Greek government plans to sell more shares in national operator OTE and seek a management partner for the company, the Athens News Agency reports. Economy and Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis announced the decision after a meeting with the privatisation commission. The Greek state will maintain a minority stake in OTE. Alogoskoufis said consultants for the sale would be hired over the next few weeks. The size of the stake for sale has yet to be decided. In a later statement, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos stressed that the “government is looking for a strategic partner amongst internationally recognised telecoms organisations, with the candidate offered a stake of the management”. The Greek state currently holds 38.6 percent in the company.
Source- http://www.telecompaper.com
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OTE profit rise beats forecasts
