Whose project is the company Novotel, what is the role of Čović and Dodik in all this, and is this an attack on BH Telecom?!

By: Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

The new telecom operator in Bosnia and Herzegovina has entered the public space of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the back door, mostly attracting the attention of media focused solely on economics.

This is about the company Novotel, founded in Sarajevo, and according to Biznis.info, Novotel will operate on the Mtel network, but exclusively in the Federation of BiH entity. It will use the area code 067, assigned to Mtel.

The key person behind the whole story is mentioned as the Mostar businessman and HDZ cadre Mario Raspudić, in partnership with Ivan Kožul, who is also the director of Novotel. According to business registry data, the founders of Novotel, with smaller capital contributions, are also Asa Central Osiguranje Sarajevo and Tehnoservis Orašje.



Novotel started its operations in 2020, and its profit at the end of 2021, according to specialized websites, was around 21,000 KM. At the end of 2022, Novotel's profit was almost 400,000 KM. Thus, the business is developing, but everyone is asking at whose expense.

Mtel has clearly protected itself, as Novotel does not operate in the Republika Srpska entity, so by launching a new company in a fragmented and generally shallow market, only BH Telecom is actually under attack.

Telecom operators, not only in our country but also wider, are losing a significant number of subscribers with the development of technologies, and the accumulation of operators in a saturated market will bring little good to anyone.

Unless, the goal is something else?

And the goal could be precisely the undermining of BH Telecom, as the only telecommunications company under the control, if we can say so, of Sarajevo. According to the 2022 report, BH Telecom had six business premises in RS and 73 in FBiH, which speaks volumes about the market this company is focused on. The number of Mtel business premises in the Federation of BiH is similar.

Therefore, the new company Novotel is already taking a significant market share from BH Telecom, as evidenced by the significantly higher profit in the last year compared to 2021. This de facto means that one of the most important companies in BiH will lose market share and profit, and Novotel's aggressive marketing campaign does not promise a change in trend in the future.

The fact that Novotel operates only in the Federation of BiH and offers its services at significantly lower prices creates unfair competition to the detriment of BH Telecom and in favor of the company's founders and their patrons.

BH Telecom, due to everything it represents, has been targeted by manipulators for years, and there is no doubt that one of the goals is to reduce the profit of this company, in order to force its majority owner, the Government of the Federation of BiH, to sell it at a much lower price.

Mario Raspudić, who has the largest share in Novotel's founding capital, is a member of HDZ BiH in Mostar, and there is a justified suspicion that the plan with the new company has a political background. Whether the whole story is coordinated on the Dragan Čović - Milorad Dodik line is not yet clear.



At the same time, the silence of the authorities in the Federation regarding market competition that will endanger their company raises suspicions that everything is likely planned somewhere, because the sale of BH Telecom would undoubtedly buy social peace for a while, although it would not be close to the real value of the company.

The operations of BH Telecom and Novotel in 2023 will certainly provide answers to many questions, and what is evident from the 2022 data shows significant growth of the new company.

Also, BH Telecom's net profit in 2022 was about 10 million KM lower than the previous year.

It is clear that someone has assessed that it is time to attack BH Telecom in the market, to reduce its revenues, which is an additional argument for its sale. Coupled with the fact that Dragan Čović's controlled chaos reigns in FBiH, it is not impossible that next year we will hear the idea of selling one of the "golden geese".

And there are also rumors in the corridors about the entry of the British into the telecommunications space of BiH.