Reuters: Hot Stocks: UPDATE 1-Watchdog says Austrian telecoms merger at risk

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-Watchdog says Austrian telecoms merger at risk Dec 14th 2012, 10:09 Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:09am EST * Watchdog confirms Telekom Austria could walk away * Yesss deal collapse would jeopardise Hutchison's Orange buy * Telekom Austria shares rise 1.9 percent (Adds details, background, shares) VIENNA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Telekom Austria could walk away from its takeover of budget mobile brand Yesss, the country's telecoms regulator confirmed on Friday, in a move that could jeopardise a wider consolidation of the industry. Hutchison Whampoa's 1.3-billion-euro ($1.7 billion) agreed takeover of Orange Austria is conditional on Telekom Austria's buying Yesss from Orange, but Austria's competition authority may object to the Yesss deal. If approval of the 390-million-euro Yesss deal is not secured by Jan. 31, Telekom Austria has an option to walk away, Reuters reported on Monday. "If there is no decision by then, Telekom Austria could get out of the deal," Georg Serentschy, in charge of telecommunications and post for the RTR regulator, told journalists on Friday. "That would be a critical situation for the merger," he added, referring to the broader plan for consolidation. Shares in Telekom Austria rose 1.9 percent to 5.40 euros by 1005 GMT and were the top gainers in a flat European telecoms index, as investors' hopes were raised that the company may not make the expensive acquisition. A spokesman for Telekom Austria said: "There is a binding offer and we stick by it." Telekom Austria agreed almost a year ago to buy Yesss, which would raise its market share by about 2 percentage points to 47 percent, in the interests of smoothing the way for a wider consolidation it hoped would ease a relentless price war. Since then, it has warned on profits and slashed its dividend to conserve cash, while Hutchison has promised to help open the market to new entrants to gain approval for the merger, limiting the benefits of consolidation to existing carriers. Austria's cartel court has already approved the Yesss deal, but the country's competition authority, the BWB, may still appeal it, and a spokesman said this week it planned to do so, although no formal decision has yet been made. The BWB says it will announce its decision next week. The European Union approved the Hutchison-Orange takeover on Wednesday, after almost a year of wrangling, on condition Hutchison offer wholesale access to its network to new entrants and give up frequencies to any potential new network operator. ($1 = 0.7641 euros) (Reporting by Angelika Gruber; Writing by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Dan Lalor and Mark Potter) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions