Tunisie Telecom wants GO’s 8,000 private shareholders to keep their shares, rather than to take up the €2.87 per share it has also offered the Emirates International Telecommunications (EIT) for its 60 million shares, its CEO Nizar Bougila told The Business Observer.

“We had to launch the offer in line with the listing rules. But as I said, TT would like to keep Maltese investors on board. We want them to vote in favour of this new partnership and for the future of GO.

“GO is a Maltese company and it has to remain a Maltese company. We would like the Maltese investors to stay with us on this long journey to develop and help this company flourish,” he said in an exclusive interview.

Advisers Deloitte confirmed that TT have €300 million in place for the 101.3 million shares that Tunisie Telecom (TT) could potentially buy. But Mr Bougila’s statements clearly indicate that the preferred outcome would be for private shareholders to stay in, adding that the new dividend policy would reflect the one GO has been following in recent years.

We would like the Maltese investors to stay with us on this long journey to develop and help this company flourish

Tunisie Telecom, which was announced preferred bidder by the GO board is owned by the Tunisian government (65 per cent) and EIT (35 per cent). It was established in 1995, and would be buying GO through TT ML, a wholly-owned Maltese subsidiary set up as a special purpose vehicle for the acquisition.

TT is the top player in the fixed line segment with 92 per cent market share and in the fixed broadband segment with 99 per cent access market share. In the mobile segment, it is the second largest player with 36 per cent market share and 5.2 million subscribers.

GO’s majority shareholder, EIT, announced its intention last July to dispose of the 60 per cent shareholding it had bought from the Maltese government in 2006. Twelve of GO’s underutilised or redundant properties, worth around €53 million, were spun off into a separate company, Malta Properties Company, last September.

There was another bidder for the EIT shares, according to a report in the Times of Malta: Batelco – Bahrain Telecoms Corporation.

Full interview in The Business Observer, distributed with Times of Malta. 

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