Panafon Hellenic Telecom Co S.A.
4 April 2001
PRESS RELEASE
4 April 2001
Panafon Extraordinary General Meeting
Approval of the merger between Panafon, Panafon Emporiki and Unifon.
Panafon announces that the merger of Panafon S.A. ('Panafon'), Panafon
Emporiki S.A. ('Panafon Emporiki') and Unifon S.A. ('Unifon') was approved at
the Extraordinary General Meeting of Panafon held in Athens today, Wednesday 4
April 2001. The three companies will merge under a corporate scheme whereby
Panafon will acquire the whole of the issued share capital of Unifon that it
does not already own. Panafon already owns the whole of the issued share
capital of Panafon Emporiki.
Under the terms of the merger, Panafon will issue 21,626,396 common registered
shares to Unifon shareholders on the basis of 0.5601 Panafon shares for 1
common share in Unifon held(1). The par value of each Panafon share will
increase from GRD 100 per share to
GRD 110.5000 per share so that the share capital of Panafon will amount to
GRD 59,020,966, 758, divided into 534,126,396 shares.
Panafon
Emporiki and Unifon are Panafon's largest service providers. The benefits of
the merger include significant opportunities from economies of scale,
management synergies, reduction of distribution network costs and time to
market efficiencies.
After the completion of the merger, Panafon will own an extensive nationwide
distribution network of retail outlets. The combined retail strength of Unifon
and Panafon Emporiki will service two-thirds of Panafon's customer base which
currently exceeds 2 million.
The new Panafon shares issued to Unifon shareholders will provide a right of
participation in the earnings of Panafon for the accounting period ending 31
March 2001.
In addition, the Extraordinary General Meeting elected a new Board of
Directors for a five year term.
- The new members are:
- Vittorio Colao
- Hans Antony Kuropatwa
- Sokrates Kokalis
- Tryfon Koutalidis
- Emmanuel Tournon
- Paolo Huscher
- George Koronias
--Ends--
For Further Information Contact:
Dimitris Tsorbatzoglou
Panafon Head of Investor Relations Tel: +301 6160019
[email protected], website www.panafon.gr/en/ir
Lulu Bridges or Stuart Carson,
Tavistock Communications, Tel: +(44) 20 7600 2288
Nicolas Bornozis ,
Capital Link, Tel: + (212) 661 7566
Notes to Editors:
1. Panafon's shares are quoted on the Athens Stock Exchange and its
GDSs are quoted on the London Stock Exchange. The shares and GDS's
began trading on Monday 7 December 1998 in ASE and LSE respectively.
2. Panafon has 512,500,000 shares in issue (prior to completion of the
merger).
3. Panafon is a shareholder in:
Panafon Emporiki (previously Panavox) 100.00 per cent
Panafon Services 100.00 per cent
Panafon Multimedia 100.00 per cent
Next Net 26.11 per cent
Unifon 19.56 per cent (100% merger with Panafon subject to
completion)
Mobitel 25.01 per cent
Ideal Telecom 51.00 per cent
4. Panafon was awarded a license to operate a GSM network in Greece for
a period of 20 years in August 1992. The network commenced operations
on 1 July 1993.
5. Panafon's shareholding structure is as follows:
Vodafone Group Plc 55 per cent
France Telecom 3 per cent
Intracom Group 10 per cent
Free float 32 per cent
PANAFON listings:
Shares: Athens SE, Reuters PANr.AT. Bloomberg PANF GA. Nominal value GRD 100.
ISIN GRS 307 333 005. SEDOL 556 0349.
GDRs: LSE . Reuters PANq.L. Bloomberg PFH GR, PFHD LI. ISIN US 6981 132 060.
SEDOL 556 0361.
Rule 144A: Bloomberg Nasdaq 2250Q US. ISIN US 6981 131 070. SEDOL 230 2629
Indices: Greece ASE composite (ASE): 6.539%, Greece ASE industrial (ASEIND):
16.254%, FTSE/ASE 20: 2.827%, Bloomberg Europe (BE500): 0.059%, BE500 TELECOM
(BETELES): 0.459, DJ EUROPE STOXX (SXXP): 0.025%, DJ EUROPE ST TEL (SXKP):
0.240, FTSE EUROTOP 300 (E300): 0.016%, FTSE E300 TELECO (E3TELE): 0.135%, BBG
EUROPE TECHN (BETECH): 0.387.
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(1) For any resulting fractional remainders the company will issue an
announcement regarding the method and time of settlement