Morgan Stanley to advise Romania's Romtelecom on Cosmote merger, stock exchange listing

Investment bank Morgan Stanley has won the bid for evaluate the Romtelecom – Cosmote proposed merger and listing the telecom company on the stock exchange, Romtelecom has announced. The bank will start to negotiate the contract with Romtelecom, according to the company.

“We’ll list either a part, or the entire stake that the Romanian state holds in Romtelecom”, said Valerian Vreme at the end of the meeting between the Officials of the Communications Ministry and the representatives of the Greek group OTE, the majority shareholder of Romtelecom. Recently, Stefanos Theocharpoulos was appointed the company’s chief executive officer (CEO), replacing Yorgos Ioannidis who ended his mandate at the end of June, according to the ministry. Theocharpoulos is also the CEO of Cosmote, a mobile telephony operator also controlled by OTE. OTE holds 54 percent of Romtelecom shares and the Romanian state has a 46 percent stake in the company. Corina Saceanu, corina@romania-insider.com (photo source: Romtelecom)