Greece May Sell All of Hellenic Telecom By End Of June

May 23, 2011, 2:24 PM EDT By Maria Petrakis and Natalie Weeks

(Updates with ministry statement in 2nd paragraph.)

May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Greece may sell all of its holding in phone operator Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA by the end of the second quarter this year.

The government is seeking financial advisers to exercise a put option for 10 percent of Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA and the sale of a further 6 percent, the Athens- based Finance Ministry said today.

Greece owns a 20 percent stake in Hellenic Telecommunications Organization, or OTE, and has the right to sell a 10 percent stake to Deutsche Telekom AG, which already has a 30 percent holding. In 2007, European Union regulators approved a plan by the Greek government which would transfer a 4 percent stake to the company’s pension fund.

Greece said Apr. 15 that it wants to sell its OTE stake this year as part of a 50 billion-euro ($70 billion) asset sale plan to cut the highest debt ratio in the European Union. Deutsche Telekom has said there is “no scope for negotiations” if the Greek government chooses to use an option to sell another 10 percent stake as the German operator is standing by its obligations in the shareholders’ agreement.

Deutsche Telekom fully consolidates OTE, determines its management, and has the right of first refusal for the remainder of the government holding. The company has said the Greek government has the right to sell an additional 10 percent to Deutsche Telekom at 15 percent above the average market price of the past 20 days.

OTE dropped 2.6 percent to 6.49 euros in Athens trading today, valuing the government’s 20 percent stake at about 636 million euros.

--Editors: Simon Thiel, Maria Petrakis

To contact the reporter on this story: Natalie Weeks in Athens at nweeks2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net

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