Vienna, February 5, 2007: The Telekom Austria Group (VSE: TKA, NYSE: TKA) today announced that its mobile subsidiary, mobilkom austria, won the tender for the GSM 900/1800 license for the Republic of Macedonia. The cost of the license amounts to EUR 10 million. The license shall be granted for a period of 10 years, renewable for further 10 years. mobilkom austria will enter into negotiations to finalize the license contract soon.
Boris Nemsic, Chief Executive Officer of the Telekom Austria Group, said: “The acquisition of the license represents a further opportunity to establish a mobile business in an attractive market after the acquisition of the license in Serbia. It is consistent with the Group strategy of increasing our presence in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The greenfield operation will benefit from the experience and synergies from operations in adjacent countries.”
The license conditions include a requirement to launch operations within 6 months following the license grant date and to provide coverage of 30% of the population within 12 months after the grant date. 50% of the population has to be covered within 24 months and 90% of the population has to be covered within 48 months. As of December 2005, mobile penetration was 63%.
The acquisition of the license and the planned launch of operations will not cause the Telekom Austria Group to exceed its self-imposed threshold of net debt/EBITDA of 2.0x. Furthermore, market entry will not impact the planned share buyback program. The dividend policy previously announced remains unchanged.