Euronews: Tycoon Eyes Polkomtel
Final bids are in for Poland's top mobile operator, while MegaFon's CEO stands down in today's platter of EMEA telecom headlines
Polkomtel SA , MegaFon and Tele2 AB (Nasdaq: TLTO) take us way out east in today's EMEA regional roundup.
Home-grown billionaire Zygmunt Solorz-Zak is thought to be setting the pace in the bidding war for Poland's largest mobile operator, Polkomtel, reports Bloomberg. Solorz-Zak has raised financing for a bid in the region of 18 billion zloty (US$6.6 billion), said a source, topping the bids of Apax Partners and Telenor Group (Nasdaq: TELN)/Bain Capital . (See Euronews: April 7 and New MNO Entrants Affect Poland's Mobile Market .)
MegaFon, the Russian operator that saw its profits slip in its most recent first-quarter financials, has announced the resignation of its CEO, Kai-Uwe Mehlhorn. Melhorn had had been in the top job for two years. (See MegaFon's Mehlhorn Steps Down as CFO and MegaFon Reports Q1.)
Still out east, the Russian unit of Nordic carrier Tele2 added 216,000 new customers in May for its mobile and fixed-line broadband services, taking its tally of customers in Russia to 19.4 million. (See TeliaSonera v. Tele2 and Russian Ops to Share LTE Network.)
French regulator Arcep , fresh from announcing the opening of the bidding process for its 4G auction, is now proclaiming that it has the legal framework for its FTTH rollout firmly in place, and indeed claims to be the first European country to have reached accomplished this feat. (See Arcep Happy With FTTH Framework, Arcep Takes Applications for 4G Spectrum and ARCEP Sets Termination Rate Target.)
The board of Zain KSA (Zain Saudi Arabia) has officially opened its books to the Kingdom Holdings/Bahrain Telecommunications Co. (Batelco) consortium, which is considering a bid for a 25 percent stake in the company. It is expected that due diligence will be completed by the end of August 2011. (See Zain Saudia Arabia Opens Books to Batelco.)
— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
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