Gold Magazine April - May 2013, Issue 25 | Seite 50

PRIVATISATION

It is almost universally the case that
the value of the telecommunications
company goes up after privatisation
receive in the short term due to a crisis, or it
could be trying to bring additional talent to
the organisation’s human resources, which
would imply a different type of privatisation
and a trade-off between value and who you
actually sell the shares to. So certain goals
need to be defined by government.”
The term “privatisation” is quite a broad
one and there are many different types. In
the telecommunications industry, the most
common are public stock market listings and
the strategic sale of a stake – typically with
significant manager influence – to a qualified partner that is expected to stay invested
for the long term and to contribute not just
money but also human resources, talent,
intellectual property and so on. Moreover,
such partners usually get into the business
for more than financial gain.
“Thinking about the companies I know
that have built up portfolios,” says Meakin,
“they are obviously looking at the financial
business case of the investment in a particular territory but they have wider considerations. As they build up a portfolio they get
greater scale in a multinational sense so a
company like Vodafone, for example, came
from the UK and is now present in scores
of countries. That greater scale then allows
it the opportunity to obtain economies
when developing products which it can do
once and then roll them out across multiple

Before
privatisation
there needs
to be a clear
regulatory
framework
and clarity
regarding
the goals

territories. So there is an external benefit to
a company from enlarging its portfolio.”
In Rolf Meakin’s view, it’s up to the
government to consider the goals of the
privatisation and to define precisely what
it expects the strategic investors to bring to
the country. These could be the development of the local talent pool in a particular
area, for example through collaboration
with universities, particularly in a high-tech
area such as telecommunications. In such
a case, privatisation may be viewed as a
means to transfer knowledge, technology
and management talent to the local labour
pool. “Any privatisation essentially comes
down to a negotiation between a willing
seller and a willing buyer and it’s for the
seller to define any non-financial value requirements it has,” says YXZ