Telekom Slovenia profit falls sharply (updated)

Telekom Slovenije, D.d

20/11/2014 09:31

(Updates with analyst quotes, more details) 
    LJUBLJANA, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Telekom Slovenia  TLSG.LJ , 
due to be privatised next year, reported a 19 percent drop in 
nine-month group net profit, partly due to price cuts for its 
products, the company said on Thursday. 
    Slovenia's leading telecom operator had net profit of 37.7 
million euros ($47.3 million), while revenues fell to 579.3 
million euros from 599.1 million a year ago.  
    The company said the profit had shrunk due to lower cost of 
its products for customers which was part of plans to improve 
Telekom's competitiveness and retain its market share. 
    Telekom controls 48.7 percent in the mobile telephony market 
in Slovenia, down 0.8 percent on a year ago, and 35.6 percent in 
fixed telephony, which is 2.5 lower than last year. 
    "The results are likely to push the share price down in the 
short term but in the medium term the price is probably going to 
rise because the company is expected to be sold at some 10 to 20 
percent above its current market value," Iztok Trobec at Dezelna 
Banka, said. 
    Telekom Slovenia is the most prized of the 15 companies the 
government put up for sale last year, with a market value of 
about one billion euros. 
    The company's shares was untraded on the Ljubljana bourse 
shortly after it opened at 0900 GMT, after closing at 156.5 
euros on Wednesday.  
    The government expects to sell Telekom in the first quarter 
of 2015, and has, according to Reuters sources, narrowed the 
list of bidders to Deutsche Telekom  DTEGn.DE  and four buyout 
firms.  ID:nL5N0SP41U  
    (1 US dollar = 0.7973 euro) 
 
 (Reporting by Marja Novak; Editing by Zoran Radosavljevic, Mark 
Potter and Jane Merriman) 
 ((Marja.Novak@thomsonreuters.com; +386-8-205-6369; Reuters 
Messaging: marja.novak.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: SLOVENIATELEKOM RESULTS/