DUBLIN, Ireland—The latest shareholder criticism of the performance of its parent company Deutsche Telekom has made it more likely that T-Mobile will finally be sold within the next 12 months to help reduce debts running to tens of billions of Euro, even though it is one of the best performing parts of the group.
Under-fire Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Ron Sommer has admitted making mistakes that contributed to company shares sinking below their 1996 issue price. However, he told the company’s annual general meeting to expect a 10-percent increase in revenues next year, saying he is confident the company’s debt could be reduced to 50 billion euro (US$ 47 billion) by the end of 2003 by selling the mobile division T-Mobile and the company’s cable networks.
“Both options still remain open to us but the conditions have to be right for us to use them,” he said, adding he is confident that market conditions would improve “in the foreseeable future.”
Deutsche Telekom’s profits were further dragged down by write-offs from the consolidation of the company’s U.S. mobile subsidiary VoiceStream and goodwill write-offs on third-generation (3G) mobile-phone licenses. But in its official report, the company said it expects a continued healthy revenue growth for the entire year of 2002, particularly driven by mobile telephony.
