The firm said on Tuesday evening that it intends to sell off 400-550 million euros' worth of the operator's stock. Solidium will also offer 450-600 million euros' worth of bonds exchangeable into TeliaSonera shares.
Solidium will offer the TeliaSonera shares to international and Nordic institutional investors. It plans to use the revenues from the sales to bankroll purchases of stock in Finnish metals and mining companies, primarily Outokumpu, Outotec and Talvivaara, according to Solidium CEO Kari Järvinen.
"We need resources to fund our activities," he says simply.
Non-strategic ownership
Solidium is responsible for managing share portfolios in partly-state-owned companies that are not deemed to be of strategic national importance. It decides independently on the weighting of its portfolio.
Solidium's stock portfolio has a market value of nearly eight billion euros. It includes shares from a dozen companies including Elisa, Kemira, Metso and Outokumpu. The firm holds a minority stake in all the firms.
TeliaSonera was formed a decade ago by the merger of Sweden's Telia and Finland's Sonera (formerly Tele). The divisions still use their original national names in their home markets. The Swedish state owns more than one-third of shares in the company.