ALBtelecom

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In June 2007, the Albanian government signed a contract for the sale of 76% of the Albanian state phone company Albtelecom Sh.A. to a Turkish joint venture, named Cetel, in a deal worth US$161 million. Cetel was a special purpose vehicle owned 80% by Calik Holding and 20% by Turk Telekom. The sale also included a license to provide Albania's third mobile phone network, Eagle Mobile. The building of the mobile network was left up to the investor. Under the terms of contract, the shares of Albtelecom could not be transferred without the approval of the Albanian government for a period of five years. The contract was a result of two years of negotiations between the Albanian authorities and the Turkish consortium after, in 2005, the government canceled an original contract, claiming irregularities in the sale. The Albanian government was to be represented on Albtelecom and Eagle Mobile's supervising boards for the next five years, or until the government's stake drops to 10%. Albtelecom held a monopoly on fixed telephony services, reaching 33% of Albanian households. In 2007, ALBtelecom's parent company signed a coupled EUR 75 million with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and an EUR 25 million credit agreement with the Black Sea Bank for Trade and Development (BTDB). The investment was used to upgrade and expand the existing fixed-line network infrastructure, to build a new mobile GSM network and develop new broadband and data services. Out of the EUR 75 million EBRD loan, EUR 30 million was loaned on the Bank's own account, and the rest of the EUR 45 million was provided by commercial banks. From Q1 2008, wireless operations were spun off into a separate company called Eagle Mobile. AlbTelecom continued to offer fixed telephony and internet services to businesses and private consumers. In February 2012, Albtelecom again merged with Eagle Mobile. Eagle Mobile was finally awarded a 3G license in early 2013. This is expected to increase the company's mobile subscriber base in the long term, despite the sudden drop in its number of 2G subscribers in 2013. ALBtelecom increased its fixed line port capacity in 2012 from 150,000 to 430,000 and in parallel to this it has started to transfer its local copper network to the new generation network. 2009: subscriber figure is sum of Eagle Telecom subscribers as of end 2009 (440,000) and fixed line subscribers as of end 2008 (265,000) 2010: Subscriber info is the estimated sum of mobile subscribers (840,000) plus fixed line subscribers (260,000) 2011: Subscriber info only from Wireless Intelligence 2008: Capex is reported for Eagle Telecom only. Investment in fixed line was not available from public sources. 2010: As of July 2011, Calik holdings' annual report for 2010 was not publicly available. 2012: CAPEX data obtained from Eagle Mobile and ALBTelecom ARs 2012 (pdf documents on website www.albtelecom.al/al/oferta-interkoneksioni). 2013: Capacity data estimate from Wireless Intelligence added to estimate for number of fixed-line subscribers (230,000).