Six companies have lodged bids for the Serbian government’s 58.1% stake in Telekom Srbija, it emerged this week.
In a statement on Monday, Serbia’s minister of trade, tourism and telecommunications Rasim Ljajic refused to name the interested parties but said the government aims to select a preferred bidder in the next 14 days.
"We are delighted with such interest," he said, noting that four years ago when the government tried to offload its Telekom Srbija stake, only one bidder came forward.
On that occasion it was Telekom Austria; however, its €1.1 billion offer fell short of the €1.4 billion the government hoped to raise.
This latest attempt to privatise Telekom Srbija ki cked off in July, and by August, eight potential suitors had shown interest in the operator.
Nonetheless, if an obvious preferred bidder does not emerge this time around, Ljajic said the government will either select what it considers to be the best bid and begin 30-40 days of negotiations, or it will scrap the process and start again at a later date.
Meanwhile, Ljajic warned that redundancies are likely to be in the offing once Telekom Srbija has been privatised.
Telekom Srbija has approximately 9,000 staff and together with its subsidiaries employs around 13,000 people, he said.
"Competitors in our market, Telenor and VIP, have incomparably fewer," he said. "Nobody can sustain that number of workers."
