January 16 (SeeNews) - Slovenian government investment firm SDH siad on Friday that a potential conflict of interest of its financial advisers Citigroup Global Markets and Lazard Freres in the sales of Telekom Slovenia and lender NKBM is adequately controlled.
SDH's supervisors came to the conclusion based on a number of domestic and foreign legal opinions. Citigroup Global Markets and Lazard Freres are representing the interests of SDH, which chose them as consultants in the selling process.
The opponents of the sale pointed out that Citigroup is also a broker of Deutsche Telekom, which is among the bidders for Telekom Slovenia, and Lazard Freres is a smaller stake holder in the Hungarian OTP Bank, which is most likely buying NKBM.
According to law firms Kramer Levin Naftalis & Franklin, White & Case in Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Ulcar and Partners, legal expert Miha Juhart from the University of Ljubljana, the Commission for Prevention of Corruption and the Commissioner for Compliance and Business Integrity at SDH, both financial advisors have established internal policies, procedures and measures aimed at preventing or dealing with the circumstances from which conflicts of interest might arise, or that all potential conflicts of interest are properly disclosed.
Moreover, SDH pointed out that the advisers have been selected in a public tender. The sales process is being conducted transparently and professionally in accordance with the law and international practice.
Telekom Slovenije and NKBM are among the 15 companies approved for privatization by the Slovenian parliament in June 2013.
The tender for a 72.75% stake in Telekom Slovenije has pre-qualified in the non-binding process investor Bain Capital, Deutsche Telekom and buy-out firms Providence, Cinven and Apax, as local media reported ealier.
In October SDH said it received multiple binding bids for 100% of NKBM.