The private equity owners of Danish telecoms company TDC have announced that they will offer to sell shares in the operator to domestic and international institutional investors, Reuters reports. ‘The selling shareholders will remain a significant investor in TDC after the offering, and have committed to a lock-up on their remaining holdings for 180 days following the transaction,’ TDC said. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, TDC was acquired by Nordic Telephone Company (NTC) – a private equity consortium including Apax Partners, Blackstone, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Permira and Providence Equity Partners – in December 2005 in a EUR13 billion (USD17.8 billion) leveraged buy-out deal. The consortium currently holds almost 88% of TDC’s shares; TDC did not say how large a stake the owners would put on the block, but the Financial Times said they would sell around USD2.9 billion worth of stock. The Danish incumbent also said it would propose to an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting a buyback of its own shares worth up to DKK9 billion, and if that proposal is accepted, it would not pay a dividend for 2010.
TDC’s plans for an initial public offering (IPO) were delayed earlier in the year, after authorities in Switzerland halted the merger of TDC’s Swiss subsidiary Sunrise with France Telecom’s (FT’s) local unit Orange in April 2010. However, in September 2010 TDC announced the sale of Sunrise to CVC Capital Partners for CHF3.3 billion (USD3.27 billion). The sale was the final stretch in TDC’s streamlining process, designed to focus on its Nordic operations, and was widely seen in the financial market as preparation by TDC’s shareholders for a flotation.