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In June 2004 65% of the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company were sold to Viva Ventures, owned by Advent International, for -280 million (about 380 million U.S. dollars). As part of the deal, BTC was provided a GSM operator license and launched Vivatel, Bulgaria's third GSM operator, in 2005. An UMTS license was additionally purchased in May 2005. In May 2007 the company was sold again. AIG purchased both the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company and the third Bulgarian mobile operator, Vivatel for total price of -1,661 million. Besides serving the vast majority of fixed telephone lines in the country, BTC is also the biggest Bulgarian ADSL Internet service provider with 100,000 customers. Icelandic-led Novator acquired a 65% stake for an undisclosed sum. In 2007 the stake was sold for £855m (about 1.2 billion U.S. Dollars). |