Slovenia Telekom sale decision unlikely before September - govt official

Telekom Slovenije, D.d

20/07/2015 14:56

LJUBLJANA, July 20 (Reuters) - Slovenia is likely to reach a 
decision on the sale of its largest telecom operator, Telekom 
Slovenia  TLSG.LJ , after the summer holidays, a state secretary 
at the finance ministry told the national news agency STA on 
Monday. 
    Metod Dragonja said talks with the only bidder for Telekom, 
British private equity firm Cinven  CINV.UL , were continuing, 
STA said. In Slovenia, summer holidays end on Sept. 1. 
    Telekom, with a market capitalisation of 574 million euros, 
is the largest of 15 companies that were earmarked for 
privatisation in 2013. Five have been sold so far. 
    Cinven initially offered up to 130 euros per Telekom share, 
which would value the whole company at 850 million euros.  
    In June Cinven reduced its offer until Macedonia's regulator 
approved Telekom's sale of its Macedonian unit to Telekom 
Austria  TELA.VI , which had been agreed last year. Slovenia 
rejected the reduced offer.  ID:nL5N0Z11TH  
    Macedonia approved the sale earlier this month and Cinven 
and Slovenian state firm SDH, which is coordinating the sale, 
have resumed talks.  ID:nL8N0ZO3BP  
    In a separate media report, daily newspaper Finance cited 
unofficial sources on Monday as saying that Telekom's management 
 had reached an agreement with trade unions on reducing the 
company's workforce from 2,700 at present to 1,900 by the end of 
2018 in order to cut costs.  
    Telekom refused to comment on the report. 
.      
 
 (Reporting By Marja Novak; Editing by Zoran Radosavljevic and 
Susan Fenton) 
 ((Marja.Novak@thomsonreuters.com; +386-1-5058805; Reuters 
Messaging: marja.novak.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: SLOVENIA TELEKOM/