Three bids for OTE’s Cosmofon
At least three companies have submitted a binding bid to buy mobile phone company Cosmofon, the subsidiary of OTE telecom in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Turkcell, Turkey’s leading cell-phone network operator and fixed-line monopoly, and Turk Telekom, which is also active in the mobile sector, said separately yesterday that they have decided to bid for a 100 percent stake in Cosmofon. Telekom Slovenije, Slovenia’s state-owned phone company, also made a binding bid, according to a statement posted on its website. Cosmofon has a 30 percent market share in FYROM, with some 650,000 subscribers. The company is being sold because Deutsche Telekom, which controls OTE, also has a phone business in the former Yugoslav republic. Makedonski Telekom AD, the largest phone company in FYROM, is a unit of Magyar Telekom Nyrt, which is controlled by Deutsche Telekom.
