The deal was done using DT’s Right of First Refusal (RoFR) towards the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF), which forms part of the shareholders agreement between OTE and DT. This also means the deal was not subject to any regulatory approvals.
Commenting on the news, Srini Gopalan, Deutsche Telekom board member for Europe, said: “This move underscores our long-term commitment to Greece. OTE is a strong cornerstone of our strategic ambition to become the leading European telco. Growth can be achieved primarily through convergence and digitisation and OTE is an essential part of our coordinated strategic efforts to make this happen.”
As a result of the deal, DT has now acquired an additional 24.5 million common registered share of OTE, increasing its total stake in the company to 45%. The transaction is based on a volume weighted average price of the OTE share over a period of 20 days up until 15 March 2018.
DT says the decision contributes significantly to its Europe segment because it ‘further drives customer growth in broadband, mobile communications and TV’. During 2017 the company says it served approximately 1.8 million broadband customers, almost 8 million mobile customers and 525,000 TV customers in Greece.
Last month, DT announced that it would begin offering its business customers bundled IoT services. The company is working with Software AG and its so-called “Cloud of Things” platform on the project. The asset tracking bundle is, says the company, a "secure, robust solution [that] lets you localise important assets and machines at any time, avoiding delays and unnecessary, expensive replacements of misplaced assets". It can trigger an alert in case of theft.