Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) chairman Adam Chesnoff met analysts this week and set out his creed as far as the future of the company and the structure of the Israeli telecommunications market are concerned. Chesnoff said that the Saban Group, which controls Partner, was not concerned at the drop in the company's share price in the past few months, because it intends to remain invested in Partner for the long term, and because in any case, as a privately held group, Saban is not especially sensitive to the share price.
Chesnoff said he thought that the fall in prices in the telecommunications market would halt within a few months because what we were seeing now from Golan Telecom and Hot Mobile were loss-making offers that could not be sustained over time. He also said that, if such a thing were possible, Partner would be happy to acquire HOT Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE: HOT), but in the same breath stressed that he was aware of the fact that Hot would be happy to acquire Partner, but said there was no intention of selling.
Chesnoff went on to say that he saw Partner becoming Israel's third telecommunications group, and that to that end it would be prepared to cooperate with the Unlimited fiber optic venture on Israel Electricity Corporation infrastructure, so that there would be a third infrastructure to compete with those of Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ) and Hot.
"We think that the Israeli regulator awarded excessive concessions to certain companies, and that the time has come for this policy to be balanced out," he said, "We intend to be much more aggressive as far as regulation is concerned in the coming year."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 3, 2015
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