Poland plans to sell half its remaining four percent stake in phone group TPSA TPSA.WA to France Telecom and the other half to TPSA under a share-buyback scheme, Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad said on Saturday.
"The Treasury Ministry will not sell its shares in TPSA this year, and the agreement we are now negotiating involves their sale in two stages," Grad told Reuters.
"We want TPSA to buy half the packet under a share-buyback arrangement and France Telecom to buy the other half...If the entire sale was on a buy-back basis, we couldn't obtain any premium," he explained.
The Treasury Minister added he expected the transaction to be finalised next year.
The shares up for sale have a bourse value of 1.22 billion zlotys ($533.9 million), but the ministry is interested in obtaining a higher than market price.
France Telecom-controlled TPSA is currently conducting a 700-million-zloty share-buyback programme.
Source:Reuters