Friday, December 07, 2007

Lattelecom CEO fired, essentially...

The shareholders of Lattelecom (Latvian government 51 %, TeliaSonera 49 %) declined to extent the mandate of Nils Melngailis as managing board chairman of the company. He will continue as managing director, but the move is seen as a clear expression of no-confidence in his plans for a management and employee buy-out of Lattelecom. The decision also effectively torpedos the 300 million LVL deal which depended on Melngailis and his team continuing to run the company. Among the intended investors in the MBO was The Blackstone Group of the US, one of the world's largest private equity companies.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Blackstone Group of the US is one of the world's largest private equity companies..

and

TeliaSonera is one of the world's most corrupted infrastructures.

In Lithuania we call it a State within a State.. :)

Juris Kaža said...

Just curious, why do you think TeliaSonera is corrupt? Have there been stories of bribery or the like in the Lithuanian press or TV?
The company is rather carefully watched and regulated in Sweden and this applies to its subsidiaries;
To be sure, there have been cases of corruption in Sweden as well, such as the national alcoholic beverage retail monopoly Systembolaget taking bribes and favors.

Anonymous said...

stories?

1. The secret privatization contract between the Government and TeliaSonera is signed.

2. Accidentally Lithuanian Ministry of Communication was liqudated...

3. ex Communication Minister Zentialis starts working for TeliaSonera and his collegue - deputy minister Usas gets another important position ("head of telecom regulator").

4. The two guys start cooperate very closely. The Minister implements TeliaSonera's "kill all competitors" program where as his collegue Usas "monitors" the market with closed eyes.

5. When it becomes absolutely impossible for Usas to stay in his position (scandals, scandals and scandals), he is forced to resign. Where the head of "regulator" ets his new job? He becomes TeliaSonera's Strategic consultant..

6. Only fragments of TeliaSonera's criminal actions where somehow investigated. TeliaSonera is a well known "customer" of Competition Council (amount of fines exceeds 4-5 mln. Lt.)

7. "UAB SONTEL" is a project where the teliaSonera establishes a 'paper company' for money laundering. In about two years this company pumps out milions of litas. Nobody cares.

8. ACB/ITSS is another large scale criminal project. TeliaSonera installs this sophisticated system for spying his VoIP competitors. The system works in tandem with a phone line bombarding service from Cibertec (Costa Rica). The sophisticated system allows TeliaSonera to record all DTMFs dialed by everybody from banking users to Government. And what? Nothing. Dispite the fact of illegal data collection was officially recognized by Lithuanian authorities, but they said the data was collection WAS NOT INTENTIONAL!! Absolute nonsense.

9. Do you know who is responsible for monitoring TeliaSonera after Usas has to leave his post? Occasionally there was one more deputy minister - now he is doing the same "job" as his collegue Usas. And what? The whole infrastructure remains monopolized, and the gang is diversifying its business to IT relates areas.

10. Before it was acquired by TeliaSonera, Lithuanian Omnitel used to be a good quality service. After two or three years it's getting closer to TeliaSonera owned "telekomas" - the most hated name among costumers.

11. TeliaSonera is one of the most dengerous infrastructures conducting unfait business. Tens of talented young people where forced to immigrate, looding their investments in money and human resources. The gang ruined about 35 small companies and the overall damages exceeds hundreds of milions. This is called "business policy" - it's been much cheaper to buy a government people rather than to compeate or invest in quality service. Even in worth case (if TeliaSonera is fined), it costs only few milions..

Sooner or later TeliaSOnera will have to compensate us for all damages: no time limits for criminals!

TeliaSonera Must stop spreading bribery and corruption!

Thank you.
www.dbs.lt

Anonymous said...

Juris,

you are not tolerant by spreding roumors that "Lattelecom CEO fired".
There were no prolongment of PoA accepted by the Council, but as an MD Mr.Melngailis will still remain.

Bleveland said...

TeliaSonera has been accused earlier for unfair business (Turkey, Russia) but so far nothing made it to the court room. Since there still is a serious threat to several people in the TeliaSonera leadership requiring personal bodyguards they probably met some fellows they didn't get along with (not difficult to achieve in these places and unclear if there is a link between the allegations and the threats). Anyway the company seems to use the “Darwin strategy” which means that they adapt to the actual situation where they operate. In today’s Baltics no major business is done without bribes or favors. Sad but it seems to be true. This might very well lead or have led to that TeliaSonera pushes the situation to its legal limits or even beyond. Having said that the company is, as Juris already mentioned, carefully watched and regulated (not only in Sweden but in Finland as well).

To alias verslo tinklas et al: with all respect for your list, it doesn't become true just by making it long(er). As you refer to www.dbs.lt the listed topics are just stories and nothing more at this moment of time. What these stories are telling is that there seem to exist corrupt politicians even in Lithuania. Politicians that give themselves and/or each other lucrative jobs. This is nothing new. If there is any country that can compete with Latvia in the area of “personal pocket filling", than Lithuania seems to be a good candidate. In fact they might even win the "battle of bribery" (not the one against it anyway).

For weeks you have been claiming that TeliaSonera is the “most dangerous infrastructure”. Whatever that exactly means, allegations of bribery and corruption pop up repetitively often lacking significant relevance to the actual blog post. It certainly might qualify you for the “blog polluter award 2007”, but it doesn’t help us readers any further in understanding who you are and what you want. It is obvious that TeliaSonera frustrates you resulting in what appears to be a personal vendetta. However, the reason for that remains non-disclosed which makes it somewhat difficult to believe that you are just a private person who is fighting for his principles. Just unveil a bit more about yourself, your situation and what TeliaSonera did to you in person or perhaps to your business to get you so pissed-off.

Understand me correctly: TeliaSonera is definitely not on the list of my favorite companies. There are lots of reasons to be fed up with them. Dealing with them from a customer perspective is for many of us one of those reasons :-)
How true your allegations towards TeliaSonera ever might seem to you, to us readers they are so far, besides coming from an anonymous source, legally groundless (not necessarily meaning that you in actual fact are wrong).

Eventually my point is as Denzel Washington playing the corrupt Los Angeles police officer Alonzo Harris says in the movie “Training Day”:

”It is not what you know, but what you can prove.”

Extremely frustrating but very true.

Juris Kaža said...

Stock Times,
Read carefully, the essence (true meaning) of this is that the government wants to get rid of Nils Melngailis and to torpedo the MBO. Formally, he is MD, but why stay on if there is an expression of no confidence?