Tele Danmark says it has agreed with the Danish government to buy back 14bn Danish crowns’ ($2.04bn) worth of its own shares. Tele Danmark said that the deal between its board and the government was conditional on there being a majority supporting the move in parliament as well as approval from the group’s shareholders. The Danish state has a 51.73% stake in the partly privatized telecommunications group and the share buy-back deal affects over half of the government’s present shareholding. The minority Social Democrat-led center-left government says it will announce plans for the sale of part of its holding in Tele Danmark in the autumn. The buy back, which is expected to take place in the first half of 1998, will take place at share market price on the day of purchase minus 2%, Tele Danmark said in a statement. Based on the current price of 360 kroner per b-share, the group’s combined market value was calculated at around 47.3bn crowns and that the deal corresponded to almost 39 billion b- shares or around 30% of Tele Danmark’s total capital.