The company organized a rather restricted tender to select a consultant to appraise and advise on the best use for the hundreds of pieces of property inherited from the old Romtelecom network in Bucharest and other cities in the country.
Romtelecom, which is the leading provider of fixed telephony services and the second leading TV and Internet service provider of the country, is indirectly controlled by Deutsche Telekom, while the Romanian government retains 46% which it plans to sell in the coming period. It is one of the largest property owners in Romania, according to ZF estimates.
KMPG, Romtelecom and Information Society Ministry representatives did not comment on the contract by press time.
One of the most attractive pieces of property Romtelecom owns is an over 8,000 square building in central Bucharest near the Floreasca emergency hospital. The building where a private healthcare provider once intended to open a hospital is now up sale for EUR4.5 million.
The company also owns warehouses and land, as well as hotels, one of which located in the Black Sea resort of Mamaia.
Romtelecom created a website for its real estate assets in 2010 to make it easier to sell or lease them. It announced it had 42 pieces of property for sale last year.
It is not clear yet whether hiring KPMG for the assessment has to do with the sale of 46% the government holds in the company or not and how important the company’s real estate portfolio will be in the deal.
The politicians in the IT&C Committee of the Chamber of Deputies suggested Romtelecom’s real estate portfolio was worth EUR350 million to EUR1 billion. Romtelecom ranks 9th in ZF’s 2013 ranking of 100 most valuable companies, considered to be worth EUR1.1 billion. This means the 46% of the government are worth EUR524 million.
Romtelecom, which along with its sister company Cosmote, is engaged in a fierce competition over customers with multinationals like Orange, Vodafone and UPC and with Romanian-owned RCS&RDS, has previously said it wants to sell real estate assets to finance investment in fiber optics network.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)