TIRANA, Au. 5 – Official Berlin has cautioned Albanian government authorities on the sale of Albtelecom, a local newspaper reported.
A senior official, Bernd Pfaffenbach, had sent a letter to Albanian Minister of Economy Genc Ruli regarding the telecommunications privatization process.
The letter mentioned the interest expressed by a German company, Axos Capital, to buy the public company for 320 million Euro (160 million Euro for the sale and the other 160 million Euro for investment).
All such details were learned from Mapo magazine that secured the letter the German official sent to the Albanian minister.
The German official asked the minister that the privatization process be fair and transparent and he also asked Ruli to take into consideration the offer made by the German company.
Its investment would offer very competitive prices for the fixed phone lines and mobile ones for 50 percent of the population in five years.
The German company said that it would offer a leading partner in the European market for a qualitative and quantitative increase of the Albtelecom services to the clients.
It is believed such a partner could very likely be Deutsche Telecom.
In June the Albanian government signed a contract for the sale of 76 percent of the Albanian state phone company, Albtelecom Sh.A., after renegotiating terms with a Turkish consortium, Calik Enerji telekomunikasyon a.S, a consortium consisting of Calik Enerji and Turk Telekom, in a deal worth 120 million euro.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party-led government canceled an original contract after his party took power in September 2005, claiming irregularities in the sale. It also hired international auditors to investigate the deal.
Albanian authorities and the Turkish consortium re-negotiated the contract terms but the price remained the same. Calik needed to have a partnership with a strategic telecoms operator and teamed up with Turk Telekom to form a joint company.
Amendments to the contract included an investment for the roaming network; the presence of the Albanian authorities in the monitoring board; and a stipulation that the company cannot be resold within a set time period, though the length of this was not made clear.
Calik Enerji was the only international company offering to buy Albtelecom. Ten other companies from Slovenia, South Korea, the United States, Kuwait and Ireland had expressed early interest but did not submit bids.
Albtelecom, which the government valued at some 145 million, is the only fixed-line telephone company in the country that also owns a mobile phone operator.
