OTE expects Greek market to deteriorate 2011

Greece's OTE, the biggest telecoms group in the Balkans, expects the Greek economic situation to worsen next year as the country struggles to extract itself from the deepest recession in almost 40 years.
"The market situation next year will become worse than it is now," newly appointed CEO Michael Tsamaz told the Morgan Stanley annual TMT conference in Barcelona on Thursday.
The economic crisis wreaked havoc with Greece, which is under IMF austerity programme, and has eaten deeply into OTE's revenues.
The former state monopoly is 30-% owned by Deutsche Telekom, which has spent 3.8 bln euros over the past two years to build its stake.
OTE's Chief Financial Officer Kevin Copp said "looking into the fourth quarter, we should remain stable" in regard to free cash flow.
He added that next year a lot will depend on measures implemented by the government but that he expected free cash flow to be stable.
"The government has in fact realized… it needs to take measures to jumpstart the economy," Copp said.