Finland's Elisa is unlikely to make big acquisitions despite calls earlier this year by its largest shareholder, Icelandic Novator, Elisa's chief executive said on May 16. Novator urged Elisa, Finland's second-largest telecom operator, to carry out a structural and strategic shake-up and to use unused cash on acquisitions.
But despite a new board, proposed by Novator, there were no significant changes yet in Elisa's strategy, Chief Executive Veli-Matti Mattila said. "We continue to go through acquisition targets abroad. But we don't believe it is very likely we will come up with an acquisition," he told Reuters in an interview.
Mattila said the company could make smaller acquisitions in expanding its business into new services, but would not take higher risks.
Mattila also repeated the company's target to keep sales and operating profits, minus one-offs, this year at 2007 levels. Elisa had yet to feel the impact of the global economic downturn, and the effect on the Finnish economy, Mattila said, although there were signs consumers had become warier in the first quarter.
"We have said there are some indications of a slowing consumer demand. Time will tell if this really is taking place. In the corporate market there have not been changes," Mattila said, although Elisa had not come to any conclusions yet.
Core prices in the market had not changed much, he said, but some players were campaigning hard to get more market share. "We believe we can better increase our size by selling more to the existing clients," he said.
While Elisa's churn, the rate of customer turnover, was 15.6 percent in the January-March period, Mattila repeated Elisa expects to see future churn at 10 to 15 percent. "There may be quarters we are towards the higher end of that," he said.