Ukraine receives one bid to privatize Ukrtelecom

Ukraine’s State Property Fund announced yesterday that only one bidder, related to Austrian firm EPIC, registered to privatize the government’s 92.79% stake in Ukrtelecom (UX: UTLM UK), Ukraine’s incumbent fixed-line telecom operator. EPIC previously worked as advisor in two M&A deals with Deutsche Telekom in East European markets, managed and worked as a private equity investor in Romania’s biggest cable telecom company. According to procedures, the SPF will announce a tender to value Ukrtelecom, which should take 15 days and provide another 30 days for the valuation process. After that, the SPF will offer the government’s stake to EPIC at the higher of the price from the valuation results or the auction starting price of USD 1.31 bln. Yegor Samusenko: The announcement of just one bidder came as a surprise to the market, which believed Sistema, owner of mobile telco MTS, or SCM, Ukraine’s largest business group, were the most likely candidates. We believe EPIC likely represents another buyer since all private equity investments by this company have been made for much lower amount. Past teleco clients of EPIC include Deutsche Telekom and GTS Czech.