It is becoming more and more obvious that RomTelecom's majority shareholder, Greek group OTE is in no way planning to shed the mobile telephony division Cosmorom, even though the latter is not exactly doing fine.
Although the Greek shareholders may have hinted at selling Cosmorom earlier this year, OTE's CEO Lefteris Antonakopoulos was quoted as saying by the Kerdos (Profit) newspaper that $400 or $500 million were set aside for investments in the mobile telephony operations in Romania.
OTE will try to balance out the reduction of its internal (Greek) market share with new income, originating from its investments abroad, Antonakopoulos said.
Towards this, Antonakopoulos reconfirmed the interest of OTE for the mobile telephony operators it holds in Romania, Bulgaria, Armenia, Albania and Macedonia.
As far as the Romanian market is concerned, he has said that the aim of OTE is to invest $400-$500 million for the purpose of supporting the position of Cosmorom in the mobile telephony market.
OTE's CEO had announced several weeks before that he had authorised Deutsche Bank to look for new opportunities in Romania. The possibilities for OTE to consolidate its position on the Romanian mobile telephony market included establishment of a joint venture between Cosmorom and one of its competitors, selling Cosmorom or feeding more cash into it.
Letferis Antonakopoulos said it was too early to predict whether this investment (the $400-$500 million) would involve "the purchase of another mobile telephony company", a scenario he considered "weak" or the "autonomous development of Cosmorom."
OTE officials have repeatedly said they are planning to turn RomTelecom into the leading Balkan operator, which cannot be done without a mobile telephony division. Furthermore, they feel the domestic market has enough room to accommodate a powerful player besides MobiFon and Orange.
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