Finance Minister Kažimír confirms negotiations with Deutsche Telekom

The government is holding talks on the sale of 49 percent of shares of Slovak Telekom with Deutsche Telekom AG. Finance Minister and acting Economy Minister Peter Kažimír confirmed the ongoing negotiations after the Cabinet's session on Wednesday however he did not want to comment on the possible price or other factors. The minister only reiterated that the bid is "significantly higher" than the price of €750 million set in an auction of the company's shares on the stock exchange. Slovakia was initially planning to sell the shares via the stock exchange, but it resorted to halting the entire process last Thursday after having received a more favourable offer from the investor. According to Bloomberg, Deutsche Telekom was supposed to come up with a bid worth around €900 million. Based on sources that didn't want to be identified, the German company, which bought the 51-percent majority stake in Slovak Telekom in 2000, is reported to be close to signing a deal to this effect with the Slovak Government.

Prime Minister Robert Fico should immediately halt the sale, as the offer by the majority owner Deutsche Telekom isn't advantageous for Slovakia, Independent MPs Juraj Miškov and Martin Chren said in Parliament on Wednesday. Chren claims that once Deutsche Telekom buys up the rest of the shares, the company will undergo consolidation and lay off over 2,000 people if it acquires the remaining shares. Moreover, Chren claims that it's expected that once Deutsche Telekom becomes the sole owner of Slovak Telekom, the third largest income tax payer in Slovakia, it'll transfer its profits from Slovakia to Germany and Slovakia could thus lose tax revenues for the state of €10-20 million, Chren predicts.