Vivendi may pull the plug on Central European operations
Europemedia.net
French media giant Vivendi may be considering selling its Central European assets as part of a drive to reduce its debts.
In an interview with the La Tribune newspaper, Vivendi chairman and CEO, Jean-Marie Messier, said that apart from selling utilities subsidiary Vivendi Environnement, other possibilities to reduce Vivendi's debt would be the sale of Elektrim in Poland. Messier added that Vivendi has other non-strategic telecoms interests in Central Europe.
According to the Budapest Business Journal, a spokesperson for Vivendi did not confirm whether Messier's statement was true, saying only that the comments had been made, and adding that 'strategic interests' applies to France and neighbouring Monaco.
Vivendi's Central European operations are located in Hungary and Poland. In Hungary, Vivendi occupies the number two slot in the newly-liberalised telecoms market, after the incumbent, Matav.
Meanwhile, in Poland, Vivendi owns a 10 per cent stake in troubled conglomerate Elektrim and a majority stake in Elektrim Telekomunikacja, which in turn controls PTC (Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa), owner of Era, a GSM mobile operator.
Commentary: Europe's Wireless Wakeup Call
By: Dan Jones | March 11, 2002
The time has come for European regulatory authorities to get off the fence on the 802.11a standard from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE). Unless they get a move on and adopt the standard, the deployment of low-cost broadband wireless services could be seriously delayed – and this could have a serious impact on the growth of the European mobile market.
The problem is that the Europeans – naturally – don't like the idea of adopting technology that comes from the U.S. They would prefer to use their own, homegrown specification, HiperLAN, in an effort to support indigenous equipment manufacturers. But, basically, that battle has already been fought and lost. The development of HiperLAN has fallen behind that of IEEE 802.11. Major HiperLAN supporter Ericsson AB has dumped it in favor of the IEEE standard.
It's time to move on.
Tied to Nothing But the Future
Unstrung.com
