After having decided to replace the management of RomTelecom last week, OTE Company, the main shareholder of the Romanian hardline telephony operator, is contemplating the replacement of the management team at Cosmorom, the mobile telephony operator launched on the Romanian market last year.
"Once the goal of establishing a telecommunications infrastructure at RomTelecom was attained, we are now planning to expand Cosmorom's coverage, so that we'll consider replacing its management," Konstantinos Gioulekas, OTE International Investments financial analyst, told Ziarul Financiar.
However, sources within Cosmorom told Ziarul Financiar they had not heard about such a possibility. "Even if it were true, nobody can fight OTE in case it might want to make some changes," the same source said.
RomTelecom last week announced the appointment of a new manager, Panagiotis Kargados, who replaced Vassilios Tsakoniatis.
Although the former manager, Tsakoniatis, argued his decision by the wish to join his family in Greece, Gioulekas said the change was called for by the development stage the company was entering.
"Following the conclusion of a stage when the telecommunications infrastructure was established, as well as due to the deregulation of the telecommunications market in Romania in 2003, it was necessary to appoint a new management team to allow RomTelecom to improve its commercial policy and successfully withstand the competition to come," Gioulekas said.
Gioulekas said OTE deems RomTelecom's financial results for Q1 this year as satisfactory, in spite of the 68 percent decline in net profit, compared with the same time last year.
Also last week, the Criminal Investigation Department within the General Police Inspectorate heard former financial operations manager Giorgios Iliopoulis, former general manager Tsakoniatis, former Communications minister Sorin Pantis and former State Ownership Fund (SOF) chairman Radu Sarbu, involved in RomTelecom's privatisation back in 1998.
Radu Sarbu said that every decision concerning RomTelecom's privatisation was made by the Committee co-ordinating the privatisation of the company, led by former PM Radu Vasile. Privatisation minister Ovidiu Musetescu said last month that the General Police Inspectorate was conducting a "specific investigation" about a nine million-dollar commission illegally paid by SOF to Goldman Sachs for its consulting services in RomTelecom's privatisation.
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