ATHENS, June 25 (Reuters) - Greece's major telecoms firm OTE said on Wednesday it was in preliminary talks with themain shareholder of its rival Forthnet to buy itssubscription television operations.
"There have been preliminary contacts between OTE andForthnet's major shareholder Forgendo Ltd., regarding the Novapay-TV operations," OTE said in a bourse filing.
Forthnet, an internet, telecommunications and pay-TVprovider, has a market capitalisation of 144 million euros ($196million) on the Athens bourse.
Its biggest shareholder Forgendo, which is controlled byEmirates International Telecommunications, holds a 44 percentstake in the company.
Vodafone, OTE's biggest domestic rival, holds a 6.5percent stake in Forthnet and earlier this month acquired anoption to increase it to 19.75 percent.
OTE is controlled by Germany's Deutsche Telekom. ($1 = 0.7355 Euros) (Reporting by Harry Papachristou)