BCR looking into telecoms

Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank – BCR), the largest bank in the Romanian system, is interested in teaming up with the Romanian Post Office and establishing a new fixed telephony operator in which it would control no more than 5%. “We have analysed the opportunity of going into this business and decided for an up to 5% exposure to the capital of the entity to be established, for the time being. It is too soon to be talking exact figures now, though, as the feasibility studies and the project analysis have not been completed yet. Actually, the only thing BCR has done so far is submitting a letter of intent and nothing more,” Cornel Cojocaru, BCR spokesman told Ziarul Financiar. Monday was the deadline set for everybody interested to enter the fixed telephony market side by side with the Romanian Post Office to express interest. Several other letters of intent came in from Electromagnetica, Romservice International, Logic Telecom, Grupul Industrial Roman (Romanian Industrial Group), SkyTel and two SIFs (Financial Investment Companies), that is Banat-Crisana and Oltenia. The only requirement expressly put forth so far is that anyone looking to enter this venture has to come up with $2-$6 million for starters. BCR’s plan to go into the fixed telephony market comes at a time of an ongoing privatisation process for this bank, or, in other words, at a time of attempts to sell a stake in BCR to two international financial institutions, EBRD and IFC. ZF