The TIM Hellas transaction marks another phase in Sawiris’s ever-growing telecommunications group, which hopes to gain a 100% stake in another Greek company, Tellas, and enter new Asian markets, such as North Korea, later this year.
Weather Investments now owns 100% of TIM Hellas after buying out private equity firms Texas Pacific Group and Apax Partners for €500 million. A statement from Weather said that the deal would be financed with debt provided by Citi, Banca IMI and Deutsche Bank. The deal, which was completed on February 6 subject to EC approval, will involve Weather taking on TIM Hellas’s net debt, which is about €2.9 billion.
Although Weather paid a hefty price for TIM Hellas, analysts are generally positive. "Sawiris paid €3.4 billion, the next highest bid was rumoured to be about €3.2 billion," says Melvyn Cooke, telecommunications analyst at Standard & Poor’s. "[However], he is a savvy investor and can obviously see growth potential in TIM Hellas, probably through generating synergies with other companies in his portfolio."
Value driven
Wael Ziada, an analyst at EFG-Hermes, says: "Sawiris is an efficient and aggressive player, at the same time as being ver
