OXFORD, United Kingdom—The Czech Republic’s largest mobile operator, EuroTel, is back in the takeover sights of Cesky Telecom. This comes as the Czech government called off plans to sell its 51-percent shareholding in Cesky Telecom, which reported it is looking to restart discussions with the Atlantic West consortium. That consortium holds a 49-percent stake in EuroTel.
Cesky attempted to acquire Eurotel last year, but negotiations with the Atlantic West consortium, split equally between U.S. operators AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless, collapsed after Cesky dropped its offer to 1.2 billion euro (US$1.1 billion) from the 1.65 billion euro (US$1.5 billion) previously agreed. Cesky Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Premysl Klima confirmed that the company had not lost interest in EuroTel, and a purchase would depend on the state of the telecom market rather than the government’s privatization plans.
To complicate the issue, Dutch-based KPN said it still hoped to sell its portion of a 27-percent stake in Cesky Telecom that it shares as part of a Swisscom consortium. The company was to sell the stake as part of the privatization, but a spokesman said KPN may now look to sell it independently from the government.
