Telekom Austria (TA) will make a tactical bid for the purchase of 51 percent of shares of Telekom Srbija, Serbia's largest telecommunication provider, in order to prevent bilateral talks between Serbia and Deutsche Telekom, the Vienna-based economic daily Wirtschaftsblatt reported.

TA will place a bid which will not meet the tender requirements, the Vienna daily learned from an unidentified source, adding that TA will do that in order to remain in the race for the purchase of Telekom Srbija shares.

TA is in fear that on the contrary Deutsche Telekom could enter bilateral negotiations with Serbia.

The price of EUR 1.4 billion, requested by the Serbian government, is not suitable for TA, the daily reads.

According to Wirtschaftsblatt, Deutsche Telekom emerges as a favorite due to its share in the Greek OTE, which owns some of the Telekom Srbija shares, and thereby has an insight into the details of its business.

The tender for Telekom Srbija sale was invited on October 20, 2010 and is due today.

The tender documentation for the purchase of Telekom Srbija shares has been bought by Deutsche Telekom, TA, America Movil, Vedder Investment, Turkcell, VimpelCom and France Telekom, which has given up on the tender in the meantime.

According to the procedure, if there is more than one bid at the tender about ten days after its expiry, the majority owner of Telekom Srbija will be the company which has offered the highest bid.

At the moment, 80 percent of Telekom Srbija shares are state-owned, while 30 percept is owned by OTE, whose 30 percent of shares are in possession of Deutsche Telekom.