Reuters — Greece plans to sell a 5 percent stake in dominant telecoms operator OTE under updated privatisation plans, the government said on Wednesday.
The state owns 10 percent of OTE, a hitherto unspecified part of which it has said it will divest. The firm is managed and 40 percent-owned by Deutsche Telekom.
According to the plan published on the government’s official journal, Greece will transfer 5 percent to privatisation agency HRADF, which will manage the sale.
Privatisations have been a key condition of Greece’s international bailouts since 2010, but political resistance and bureaucratic snags mean few have gone ahead so far.
Heavily indebted Greece clinched a deal with international lenders in the early hours of Wednesday to unlock desperately needed new bailout loans on condition it fulfils certain terms, including speeding up privatisations.
On Sunday parliament voted through a reform bill that sets up a new, privatisation umbrella fund which will include more assets and will operate from 2016 for 99 years.
The government also signed off a plan to set up a mechanism for auctioning power generated by dominant utility PPC and reducing its market share to below 50 percent by 2020, as agreed under its latest bailout. The first such sale is planned for September.
