etisalat denies offering $4.93b for TIM Hellas
Dubai: Emirates Telecommunications Corp (etisalat) will decide this week on a bid for Greek mobile telephone operator TIM Hellas but denied yesterday a report that it had offered to pay as much as 3.8 billion euros.
A Dow Jones report, citing people familiar with the matter, said on Friday that etisalat had offered about 3.8 billion euros ($4.93 billion) for TIM Hellas, the third-largest mobile operator in Greece, which is owned by two private equity groups.
“It will be definitely less than that. That level is unheard of,” Jamal Al Jarwan, Etisalat’s general manager of international business, told Reuters.
etisalat’s international investment committee will decide on its bid in the coming week after conducting due diligence over the past month, Al Jarwan said.
The deadline for binding offers is November 30, he said.
etisalat Chief Executive Mohammad Al Qemzi said the committee would likely meet today or tomorrow to decide on the bid.
“We haven’t offered anything yet and we will offer the right price for the market,” Al Qemzi said.
etisalat submitted a non-binding bid for the licence earlier, Jarwan said. “But $5 billion is completely wrong, we completely deny it. It (the non-binding bid) was significantly less,” Jarwan said.
etisalat has a reputation for aggressive bidding. It led a consortium that paid $2.9 billion for the third mobile phone licence in Egypt in the summer, almost 20 per cent above the second-highest offer.
The company’s winning bid for a stake in Pakistan Telecommunications Co. Ltd topped the next highest offer by $1.2 billion.
Etisalat is seeking a controlling stake in TIM Hellas as part of a wider expansion strategy, Al Qemzi said in October.
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