Final Word from Thursday, October 21, 2004
Our piece about a flotation of Český Telecom shares brought all kinds of creatures out of the woodwork. Several stockbrokers argued that a flotation would be more transparent than a "trade" sale to a strategic investor, would ultimately bring as much or more money, and would help the capital markets. They said that both legal and technical steps could be taken to prevent Osama bin Laden or other undesirables from taking control of Telecom. Editor-in-chief István Lékó of Euro objected to being called PPF's mouthpiece and said there's a question as to whether PPF is interested in Telecom at all. CEO Gabriel Berdár of Telecom told the BBC last night that the Telecom management doesn't prefer any privatization method over another. He also said he expects more dirty, pseudo-scandals - such as our recent articles, no doubt - to surface in the run-up to the privatization.