Estonian govt okays termination of Levira selloff

Photo: Raigo Pajula

The Estonian government on Thursday endorsed a proposal of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications to cut short the process of selloff of the 51 percent of shares held by the government in the cloud, media and network service provider AS Levira.

The government announced the sale of the shares in Levira and authorized PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisor to conduct the negotiations in February 2014.

The 51 percent shareholding of the Estonian  state was to be sold together with the 49 percent holding belonging to TDF. The aim of the sale was to divest 100 percent of the shares in AS Levira, according to an announcement by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications at the time.

This is the start of one phase in a long process, the ministry's deputy secretary general Taavi Kotka said. «After the government one year ago decided in principle to divest Levira shares we started preparation of the selling process and by today we have reached the phase where sale conditions have been agreed with the co-shareholder,» he said. «As the next step we can acquaint potential buyers with the sale conditions and begin the first phase of sale.»

The government gave the go-ahead to the sale of 51 percent of state-owned shares in the broadcast network operator in October 2013.

Founded in 1997, Levira provides media, IT and telecom infrastructure services in   Estonia , the other Baltic states and Nordic countries. The company is owned by the   Estonian state and the French telecom and broadcasting company TDF Group. It employs 90 people.

Sales by Levira in the financial year ending March 2014 grew 4.5 percent over the preceding financial year to 10.8 million euros. The company finished the period with a net loss of 772,000 euros as a result of the payment of income tax on a bigger-than-usual dividend. In the financial year before that Levira made a net profit of 1.5 million euros.