World's richest man interested in Telekom Srbija - U.S. company purchased tender documentation

(Carlos Slim)

U.S. company American Mobile has purchased the documentation for participation in the tender for acquisition of a package of shares of Telekom Srbija, Beta agency learned from the Government of Serbia on November 27.

The owner of the U.S. corporation is the world's richest man Carlos Slim whose property, according to Forbs magazine, is estimated at 53 billion euros.

American Mobile is in the possession of the Slim family and the largest U.S. operator AT&T. Slim is the owner of 45%, AT&T owns 25%, while the rest of the shares are in the possession of minor shareholders and certain fund.

The company is a megaoperator and has over 211m mobile subscribers and 25m fixed telephony users.

Telekom Srbija turned a profit of 13.3 billion dinars in 2009 and was the company with the largest net profit in Serbian market last year.

As Beta learns, Greeks announced the certain sale of their 20% of shares of Telekom, while the official decision will announced by the end of the year.

The Government of Serbia extended on Thursday the deadline for purchase of tender documentation for the acquisition of a package of shares of Telekom Srbija prior to December 10 "due to a big interest".

The documentation for participation in the tender has already been bought by Telekom Austria, Deutsche Telekom and France Telekom.

The Government of Serbia owns 80% of shares of Telekom, while the remaining 20% of shares are in the possession of Greek OTE, 30% of which are owned by Deutsche Telekom.

Serbian Ministry of Finance announced on October 20 the tender for sale of 51% of shares of Telekom Srbije, of which total value is estimated at 2.43 billion euros.

Who is Carlos Slim?

Carlos Slim Helu, a 70-year tycoon from Mexico, is the first rich man born outside the United States of America who has managed to climb to the top of the Forbs' list of billionaires in the last 16 years. His wealth is estimated at 53.5 billion dollars, which is a bit more than the value of the property of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. This is, also the first time for a person from a "developing economy" to appear on aforementioned list.