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GTS Central Europe Expanding Operations with Acquisition of Romanian Telecom Operator, Datek

Bucharest, June 9th 2010 – GTS Central Europe (GTS CE), a leading telecommunications operator in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), announced the completion of a contract signed in December for the acquisition of Datek, an established and significant player in the Romanian telecommunications market. Datek’s strong corporate and carrier data customer base and strong presence in the financial and public sectors are complementary to GTS’s Romanian operations. GTS CE will add Datek into its existing Romanian operations, creating a combined business with total annual revenues exceeding €25 million. The acquisition will strengthen the GTS CE footprint not only in Romania, but also in the CEE region. "GTS CE has played and will continue to play a leading role in the consolidation of alternative, infrastructure-based telecommunications operators in the CEE. For us, the Datek acquisition is another step to solidify our position in the region, which translates into increased efficiency and improved service to our customers," said Adam Sawicki, Group CEO at GTS CE. "Datek brings to GTS CE significant network and operations benefits, including over 400 route kilometres of fibre and professional expertise in systems integration. Datek’s profile makes it a perfect fit with our long-term strategy to focus on the corporate, wholesale and public sectors."In addition to providing standard telecommunications services to its customers, Datek offers data transfer, infrastructure development and systems integration and serves as the main regional partner for numerous global carriers and international financial institutions. Datek‘s international, data-centric customer base is complementary to the GTS CE strategy, which emphasizes the sale of data and managed services to target corporate and carrier customers."The decision of integration Datek in GTS structure is an important step taken in strengthen our competitive position in Romania, as well as in Central Europe. The new company will continue to develop, launch and offer on the market competitive regional products and services based on cutting edge technologies, implemented on our national and regional fibre-optic network." added Dan Mihaescu CEO GTS Telecom. "We are aiming at growing the combined business at a faster pace and we are determined to continue the path we have taken, to solid value creation for our customers.""The acquisition benefits GTS CE and Datek customers, both of whom soon will be able to take advantage of an expanded, unified service portfolio," said Leonard Lichi, CEO at Datek. "Meanwhile, Datek services to existing customers will be uninterrupted, and all existing agreements and contracts will remain valid."The acquisition of Datek is the latest step in GTS CE’s consolidation of the CEE telecommunications market, initiated in 2004 by the acquisition of the Czech operator Aliatel and followed a year later by the acquisition of the Polish company Energis, the Slovak operators Telenor and Nextra and the Czech Contactel, Telenor and Nextra. In parellel, GTS CE recently completed an operational restructuring, establishing seven customer-focused business units and regional functions, resulting in improved service to customers and increased efficiency, visibility and accountability across the company.

About GTS CE Group
GTS Central Europe (GTS CE) is a leading provider of integrated telecommunications solutions in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. GTS CE has an extensive regional fibre optic network throughout the CEE region with network extensions to neighbouring countries such as Austria, the Balkans, the Baltic States, Russia, Turkey and the Ukraine. In the CEE countries of Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, GTS CE has deep metro networks which enable voice, data, IP, MPLS and broadband communication services for local business customers as well as telecommunication carriers, mobile operators and content providers. GTS CE was awarded the "Best Wholesale Offering" of Central and Eastern Europe award by the Capacity magazine in 2005, 2007 and 2009. In 2009, the GTS CE generated revenues of EUR 384.5m and EBITDA of EUR 86m. GTS CE is owned by a consortium of private equity investors, led by Columbia Capital and M/C Venture Partners, both US-based investors with extensive experience in the communications and technology-enabled services sectors, and Innova Capital, a leading private equity group focused on Central Europe. HarbourVest Partners, Oak Investment Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners round out the Consortium. More information is available via www.gtsce.com.

One network – one region – one offer
GTS Central Europe has an unrivalled footprint in the region of Central and Eastern Europe and we offer our customers and partners equally unrivalled reach and accessibility within the CEE area, achieved through our broad international portfolio. Thanks to our representation in the entire region by a single brand, you will be able to benefit from ease, cost savings and high efficiency that may not be always achieved when using multiple supplier of your solution. If you see Central and Eastern Europe as one region, you should use just one network. GTS CE: Your one-stop solution.

About GTS Telecom
Positioned as Business Accelerator TM, GTS Telecom deploys on the B2B market a full range of carrier and corporate networking solutions based on MPLS, DWDM, SDH, TCP/IP, Frame Relay, Internet services, voice, hosting and collocation in own DataCenters. ISO 9001 certified, GTS deploys end-to-end managed solutions with guaranteed availability and accessibility (SLA). In 2009 the average SLA value for all telecom solutions provided by the company was 99.92%.The company is directly interconnected to GTS Central Europe infrastructure through its own fibre-optic cross-border network, and from here, to Frankfurt and Vienna.

For additional information please contact
Cristian Copilău
GTS Telecom
Markom Manager
[t] 0312.200.200
[m] 0740-55.44.04
[e] cristian.copilau@gtsce.com

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