Bulgaria's biggest GSM operator MobilTel is looking for a strategic partner for 49 percent of the company's shares, Board Chairman Herbert Cordt said Tuesday. A new MobilTel park was officially inaugurated on Tuesday at Kukush street in Sofia.

The Vienna-based owners of MobilTel will keep a majority stake of 51 percent stake in the company, Cordt said at a news conference.

However, on Monday, the Austrian weekly Profil informed that the owners might sell MobilTel to one of many big-name international suitors queuing up. In an interview with Austrian weekly "Profil," two of MobilTel's managers told the magazine there was interest in MobilTel but declined to give names.

"It was always clearly the case for us, that we would not keep up our involvement forever," Cordt told a reporter of the magazine.

According to the information presented at the Tuesday news conference, in 2002 the company got 900,000 new subscribers thus reaching to 1,9 million subscribers in total. The revenues over the last year were about BGN 800 M. IN 2002, MobilTel invested BGN 200 M in its network, BGN 60 M for IT systems construction and BGN 15 M for the creation of a new central and information service for clients. 2,350 are employed in the company.

Cordt said at the news conference that the company paid BGN 305 M taxes in 2002.