Orange: At Worst We Might Sell Or Merge With A Rival

05.05.2011 ZF English

Gervais Pellissier, CFO of France Telecom, the owner of Orange Romania, one of the biggest local companies, caused a stir on the entire market on Tuesday by announcing a review of the Romanian business, which brings the French group EUR1 billion in annual revenues and a profit of nearly EUR300 million.

The review is set to examine France Telecom's consolidation opportunities and even a possible sale of operations in Austria, Belgium and Romania.

The group sent details on what "a review of operations" meant on Tuesday evening, at ZF's request, and on Wednesday sent an official point of view, this time in Romanian, in order to avoid translation interpretations, which included more details.

"At worst, we might decide to sell operations following this review, but at the same time the review could result in consolidation projects (such as the joint venture in the UK, the merger proposal in Switzerland or projects for the joint use of the Poland/Austria network)," according to official statements of France Telecom.

The group insists that "at present it is not planning to sell Romanian operations" and that "at present no decision to sell or to consolidate operations on any European market has been made, nor are we in the process of implementing any such project."

As for the duration of the review, the group specified it would be carried out "over the next few months and weeks", with the indicators considered for the review being the "real potential to create value or growth for these assets.