Investment bank Morgan Stanley appointed to review Romtelecom's options

Investment bank Morgan Stanley appointed to review Romtelecom’s options

Newsroom 09/09/2011 | 13:44

Morgan Stanley is the investment bank selected to evaluate the benefits of the Romtelecom- Cosmote proposed merger and the Stock Exchange listing versus other viable options. The bank will start negotiating the contract with Romtelecom.

The shareholders of Romtelecom are OTE which has 54.01 percent of the shares and the Ministry of Communications with 45.99 percent. German telecom company Deutsche Telekom is also involved, as it holds a 30 percent stake in OTE.

Previously, the Romanian state had announced the intention to sell its shares in Romtelecom, hoping that it would get EUR 1 billion. After long deliberations that took some months, OTE officials communicated they would not buy the shares, due to the difficult economic context in Greece. Instead several variants were taken into consideration.

Morgan Stanley was chosen following a selection process organized by Romtelecom. It was also approved as the bank of choice by the General Assembly of the Shareholders.

The selection was carried out based on an agreement between OTE and the Ministry of Communications, closed on June 1, to hire consultants for the evaluation process of the options that shareholders have- either a merger between Romtelecom and Cosmote and listing the new entity on the stock exchange or directly listing Romtelecom on the stock exchange or other possible options).