Telekom Austria Investor Ronny Pecik Increased Stake in Company to 15.8%

By Boris Groendahl - Nov 26, 2011 9:05 PM GMT+0700

Telekom Austria AG (TKA), the partly state-owned telephone operator, said it was informed today that Ronny Pecik’s RPR Privatstiftung increased its stake in it to 15.8 percent via shares and options.

Vienna-based Telekom Austria said in a statement late yesterday that RPR exercised options to buy a 15 percent stake through its Marathon Zwei Beteiligungs GmbH vehicle, and in addition holds options to acquire a further 0.8 percent through its Everest Investment GmbH subsidiary.

At yesterday’s closing price of 8.209 euros in Vienna, Pecik’s stake is worth 574.6 million euros ($761 million), according to Bloomberg calculations.

The Alpine republic’s former phone monopoly said last month that Marathon Zwei has acquired options to buy 5.4 percent of the company’s rights. Pecik and three other investors are targeting a 20 percent stake in Telekom Austria, Format magazine reported Sept. 9, without citing anyone.

Pecik said Oct. 28 that he has teamed up with Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris to buy a stake in Telekom Austria. Format magazine reported Nov. 24 that Norwegian telephone operator Telenor offered to buy options to buy Telekom Austria stock at 11.30 a share from Pecik.

‘Very Little Sense’

“From an analyst’s perspective, Ronny Pecik’s plans for Telekom Austria have made very little sense from the start,” controlling stake?’’ Berenberg analysts Usman Ghazi, Barry Zeitoune and Laura Janssens wrote in a note to customers on Nov. 24. “His plans to accelerate fibre build as a value-enhancing strategy, while management is correctly pursuing a more cautious demand-oriented strategy.”

Pecik “could also be reselling his stake to VimpelCom, Telefonica, Telenor (TEL) as a viable exit strategy,” the analysts said. “Regarding the latter, we do not see the attraction of Telekom Austria for an acquirer, particularly when it is not cheap when the EV is adjusted for restructuring provisions.”

Austria, which owns 28 percent of Telekom Austria, earlier this month amended a law to limits ownership of infrastructure companies by non-Europeans. A new clause in the country’s Foreign Trade Act states that stakes of 25 percent or more require approval by the Ministry of Economics unless the investor is from the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland.

OeIAG, Austria’s state assets agency which manages the government’s stake in Telekom Austria, said in a statement today that it has “noted” the change of the company’s ownership structure and is a “stable core shareholder” in Telekom Austria.

To contact the reporter on this story: Boris Groendahl in Vienna at bgroendahl@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Angela Cullen at acullen8@bloomberg.net