GTE, the American partner of OTE at RomTelecom helm, will leave Romania in February next year, choosing not to buy a part of the 35% stake acquired by the Greek party in stock of the Romanian telecoms operator. "According to the management contract signed by GTE with OTE, the American party would have had the right to benefit from a part of OTE shares.
In 1998, when they negotiated the privatisation contract, GTE could have invested about 150-200 million dollars in RomTelecom," former Communications minister Sorin Pantis told Ziarul Financiar.
In 1998, Greek group OTE paid 675 million dollars for 35% of stock in the Romanian telecoms operator, holding the management right for another 16% of RomTelecom shares.
"The decision made by GTE to withdraw from Romania has nothing to do with a chilling in ties with OTE or the Romanian business environment. This is simply about a reorientation of investments towards other countries in the area," Kostas Bratsikas, a manager at OTE headquarters in Athens, stated.
For the two years for which it signed the management agreement, GTE received almost ten million dollars from OTE. The main reason for the withdrawal was in fact the merger between GTE and another telecommunications company, BELL Atlantic, into a new company, Verizon, which is expected to be the largest telecoms company in the United States, with approximately 25 million subscribers.
The group is currently present in more than 40 countries. GTE experts have helped OTE and RomTelecom to begin the installation of over 1.4 million telephonic lines. At that time, the presence of GTE by OTE side was deemed as an element "of success" in this deal. The one that brought GTE besides OTE was US ambassador to Bucharest James Rosapepe, through an advisor.
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