In Brief
Intralot seen posting 7 percent rise in profit Intralot SA, the world’s second-largest gaming services company, is likely to say next week that first-half profits increased by 7.1 percent, helped by the Euro 2008 soccer tournament and its foreign operations. Net income at the Athens-based company probably rose to 61.7 million euros ($91.4 million) from 57.6 million euros a year earlier, according to the median estimate of nine analysts Bloomberg News surveyed by telephone and e-mail. Sales may have increased 42.6 percent to 540 million euros, the survey shows. Second-quarter net income is believed to have risen 11 percent to 26.1 million euros and sales to 287 million euros from 199 million euros a year earlier, the survey suggests. Intralot has won contracts in countries from South Korea to South Africa over the past year, helping to offset a decline in revenues in Greece. Profit was boosted by fixed-odds betting during the Euro 2008 tournament in countries such as Italy, Bulgaria and Turkey, according to analysts. Intralot will release earnings before the end of next week. (Bloomberg) PDMA to auction 10-year 4.6 pct bond Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) said yesterday it will auction 1.6 billion euros ($2.37 billion) of a 4.6 percent, 10-year benchmark bond on Tuesday. The settlement date for the bond, a reopening of a benchmark issue maturing July 20, 2018, will be Friday. Only primary dealers will be allowed to participate. No commission will be paid for the bonds auctioned. (Reuters) 3G auction Turk Telekomunikasyon AS, Turkey’s biggest fixed-line phone company, will bid in a November auction for a license to offer high-speed wireless services, CEO Paul Doany said. Turk Telekom’s mobile unit Avea Iletisim Hizmetleri AS will take part in the auction for the country’s first licenses for so-called third-generation, or 3G, services, Doany told reporters at a news conference in Istanbul yesterday. Turkey plans to hold the auction in November after canceling a sale in September 2007 because Avea and Vodafone Group Plc’s Turkish unit declined to take part. That left Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, the biggest mobile phone company, as the sole bidder. Avea has dropped its boycott of the 3G auction after the government said it will introduce rules in November requiring operators to offer so-called number portability, allowing customers to keep phone numbers when they switch networks. Portability will be introduced on November 9, Doany said. Turk Telekom will bid for the Kyrgyzstan government’s stake in Kyrgyz Telecom, the nation’s landline monopoly, Doany said. Turk Telekom will enter the tender without parent Oger Telecom Ltd, he said. (Bloomberg) Pipeline operating The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries Azeri crude to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, resumed normal flows yesterday after a fire halted exports earlier this month. «The pipeline’s flow has returned to normal levels,» Akif Sam, a spokesman for the Turkish Energy Ministry, said in a telephone interview. A fire broke out on a Turkish section of the BP Plc-led 1,768-kilometer (1,100-mile) link on August 5, forcing the pipeline’s partners to halt the flow of Azeri crude to world markets from the Turkish port of Ceyhan. (Bloomberg)
