Telekom Austria has no plans for further acquisitions in central and south-eastern Europe, according to CEO Hannes Ametsreiter in an interview with Austrian economic newspaper Der Wirtschaftsblatt. He said that Serbia is not in the picture after the government rejected Telekom Austria's bid for part of state-owned Telekom Srbija earlier this year. Other possibilities in the region are rare, except maybe Kosovo. He confirmed Telekom Austria's commitment to paying out a dividend of EUR 0.76 a share this year, despite a major currency devaluation in Belarus, where Telekom Austria has a subsidiary and was forced to make a currency adjustment in its first-half accounts. Ametsreiter does not expect the problems faced in the first half of the year to continue into the second half. Apart from the devaluation of the Belarusian ruble, the company also faced restructuring costs in the first six months of the year.
