Springtime for Nyberg

The suitors are lining up for TeliaSonera under CEO Lars Nyberg (whence the title). Norway's Telenor, an old flame of Telia (1999) who was left at the altar (or stormed away, forgot which) is back, according to press reports. France Telecom is mulling how to bid for the Swedish telco with enough cash in the offer to attract finicky TeliaSonera shareholders. A merger with Telenor would create a real Nordic giant, though still mid-sized by global standards.
This may leave the half-mother of Lattelecom with less time and energy to deal with the wackbat* Latvian government, so she may just take any deal on offer. In other words, do the share swap using the Latvian State Radio and Television Center, get its 100 % of mobile operator LMT (the most profitable of all of TeliaSonera's subsidiaries, I believe) and forget about any covenants in the deal to functionally seperate Lattelecom into wholesale and retail units. By the time the Latvians get around to doing it -- late 2009 is for the real Pollyanna optimists, to my mind-- the European Union will decree functional separation in any case. So it doesn't matter. What matters is to get the f**k out of bed with the government, get LMT and start turning it into a full service telco (including wireline, DSL, LTE wireless internet, etc. in the next couple of years).
*an amalgam of wacko and batshit. I like it.