France Telecom Wants to Buy Stake in MobiFone

France Telecom expressed its strong intention to buy a large stake in Vietnam’s second-largest mobile phone network MobiFone, local media said.

 

France Telecom hopes to buy the highest stake possible, France Telecom CEO Didier Lombard.

 

MobiFone has shortlisted six foreign firms which would bid to advise VMS Co., the operator of MobiFone, on its equitization, including an IPO expected in 2008. Only one out of Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Rothschild and UBS will become the adviser for the Hanoi-based firm.

 

MobiFone, which is owned by Vietnam’s largest post and telecom service provider VNPT Group, said the IPO will take place early next year and VNPT would only hold one-third of the shares in MobiFone.

 

Strategic shareholders would have one third and outsiders the remaining stake, a MobiFone official said.

 

Foreign telecom giants including Vodafone and British Telecommunications Plc have said they wanted to be equity partners in the company.