Re: hungerstrikers in Greece

WoofPoof's forgery consists in the deliberate untruthfulness of an assertion,
or in the deceitful presentation of a  news article about Greece,
and is based on an intention to deceive, besmirch and dehumanize Greek
people and the Greek Orthodox faith.while using  the externals of
honesty.
    Forgery is truly a falsehood  and a fraud,
but it is something more. It includes fraudulent misdemeanours  in
matters regulated by the law, and endangering international peace and good
will

WolfWolf wrote:

"Jason K. Lambrou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
>
> Seanie O'Kilfoyle wrote:
>
> > "Jason K. Lambrou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > Typical distortion of true historical facts by the biggest liar
> >
> > Hello GAYson
> >
> > How's your Job at the deli in Queens going ?
> >
> > Get me 2 quarter pounders and a large portion of fries to go boy !
> >
> > HUSTLE !
>
>  I told you this before since I made some good investments I DON'T have
> to work

GAYSon bought some OTE shares (with borrowed money!) and call it "good investment"!
ROTFL!!!

Can OTE regain luster?
Aging giant suffering bad investments; post-election restructuring likely
By Dimitris Kontogiannis - Kathimerini English Edition

If somebody asks a local investor to explain why the Athens bourse has not done better
this year, he or she will give you a number of reasons. If the same investor is asked
to blame a stock for holding back the main stock indices, he or she will most likely
point a figure at the incumbent telecoms operator, OTE. Indeed, OTE's stock has been
one of the worst performers in the European telecommunications sector and a drag in
the local stock indices on the back of poor operating performance.

All analysts and industry officials agree that tackling costs and rationalizing
international investments should be high on the management's agenda. However, with
general elections just a few months away, it is unlikely that OTE's current management
will take steps in this direction. It is nonetheless reasonable to expect that these
steps will be taken after the elections, making OTE a likely post-election turnaround
story to watch.

OTE, until recently Greece's largest company by market capitalization, was widely
viewed as a defensive stock offering limited growth potential by foreign institutional
investors until a year ago. This view apparently started changing in the summer of
2002. Disappointing first-half financial results announced in August 2002 coupled with
what was seen as confusing and inconsistent moves in OTE's deliberations with the
Romanian side in obtaining a majority equity stake RomTelecom, which it finally did,
convinced some key foreign investors to abandon the ship, driving the stock sharply
lower in the process. The stock, which was trading around 15 euros on August 20, 2002,
ended the year at 10.50 euros and has been unable to recover ever since.

Rising debt

In the meantime, the company's strong point, its low levels of debt, started changing
as well. OTE's debt has been on the rise due to significant working capital outflows,
the need to recapitalize its international subsidiaries and to maintain high capital
investment spending. In addition, the company was forced to borrow to pay a dividend
per share of 70 cents for fiscal 2003 this summer, augmenting its debt and raising
concerns about the sustainability of its dividend policy.

This is mainly the result of unwise international investments taken over the years. It
is noted that OTE has a controlling stake in RomTelecom, the Romanian wireline
telecoms incumbent, Armenia's telecoms operator as well as a minority stake in Serbia'
s telecom monopoly. It also has equity stakes in wireless operators in Romania,
Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Its largest investment
is in Romania where Cosmorom, the mobile arm of RomTelecom, has been struggling with
no light seen at the end of the tunnel, and where RomTelecom itself has been
undergoing restructuring but has not delivered significant results so far.

Market share loss

OTE's most important weak point so far has been its domestic wireline operations where
it has lost market share to competitors in excess of 7 percent year-on-year, while
fixed traffic volumes have dropped even faster. By offering cheaper prices to
customers, alternative carriers have been able to attract them away from OTE. This
despite the fact that OTE's interconnect rates are higher than the EU average, which
should put pressure on their margins. Part of the explanation lies with GSM gateways
which alternative carriers install into their switches, making it possible to convert
fixed-to-mobile traffic into mobile-to-mobile, for which they pay a lower termination
fee. This allows competitors to make money and pass part of the savings to their
clients.

Nevertheless, aggressive competition by a number of alternative carriers has not been
the only problem so far. Fixed-to-mobile substitution has made things even worse and
has accelerated as mobile tariffs are coming down. OTE realized the problem quite late
and has recently tried to tackle it by offering to buy the 9.0 percent stake Norwegian
Telenor owns in its local mobile subsidiary CosmOTE with a view to absorbing the
leading wireless operator in Greece at a later stage, following the France
Telecom-Orange model.

Need for cost cuts

Although analysts expect OTE to keep on losing market share in the fixed telephony
market before its market share stabilizes at around 80 percent, they say the answer is
for OTE to cut operating costs to match declining revenues. This has been a
prohibitive exercise for the management though, because it entails some political
costs. Lefteris Antonakopoulos, OTE's current CEO, suggested such a move on Friday.
Speaking at a conference in Madrid, Antonakopoulos was quoted as saying that OTE wants
to increase the number of fixed lines per employee to 450 from 350 at present over the
next two years. According to Bloomberg, this translates into some 4,000 layoffs out of
17,000 currently working at OTE.

Of course, this is a sensitive issue, especially as the country heads towards general
elections in the spring of 2004. It is very likely, however, that after the elections,
whatever the outcome, OTE's new management will pursue a restructuring policy along
these lines and may include an early retirement scheme. What is not clear yet is how
fast these cuts will bring in benefits and whether the social security system will be
able to absorb a high number of retirees. This in turn means that the new management
will have no choice but to proceed with some cuts in personnel costs, even at a lower
scale.

There is no doubt that OTE looks like an aging giant with many health problems at this
point. This makes it less attractive to Greek and international institutional
investors. This does not mean, however, its problems cannot be tackled and solved
effectively. The market is likely to start discounting this possibility as elections
approach, counting on a new management to produce a turnaround story based on a
combination of canceling unsuccessful operations abroad, cutting capital spending
and/or dividends, and above all restructuring the fixed-line business by having any
cost cuts more than match revenue losses.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/economy__4119746KathiLev&xml/&aspKath/economy.a
sp?fdate=24/11/2003