Wind Hellas

Former greek telecommunications company

WIND Hellas (formerly TELESTET Hellas and later also TIM Hellas) was a Greek integrated telecommunications provider with headquarters in Athens, Greece. As of September 2010, WIND was the third largest mobile operator in Greece (after Cosmote and Vodafone) with more than 4.4 million active subscribers. The actual numbers for the years after 2015 are confidential but according to the report of Greek Government for the year 2017, WIND had a market share of 15 25% of active mobile telephone subscribers and 10 15% share of active fixed line subscribers. On January 11, 2023, WIND Hellas merged with Nova Greece, therefore fixed & mobile telephony, Internet and other WIND services were rebranded to Nova.

In 1992, STET Hellas Telecommunications S. A. was founded, as a subsidiary of the Italian company STET. Through this, Telestet started its commercial operation. On September 30, 1992 the Greek Ministry of Transport and Communications issued a license to STET to create a national mobile telephony services network (GSM). In 1998 TELESTET was the first Greek mobile telephone communications company to be listed in international stock markets, the Nasdaq in New York City and the Euronext Amsterdam. From 23 September 1999 TELESTET operated Iridium, the first mobile telephony dedicated satellite in Greece. In June 2001, TELESTET was the first telecommunications company in Greece and one of the first in the world to obtain ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management certification. In June 2001 the operator's GPRS service went live. In July 2001 it was awarded the licence to offer a UMTS service for a concession fee of €146.7 million. The UMTS service went live on January 27, 2004.

On February 7, 2007, Apax Partners and TPG announced that TIM Hellas had been purchased outright by Weather Investments, the telecom holding company of Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris, for 500 million Euros of equity plus 2.9 billion Euros of net debt. The brand name changed to WIND Hellas on June 5, 2007, the name of the parent company WIND Hellas Telecommunications S. A.,

On August 16, 2021 it was announced that United Group, which owns NOVA Greece, had purchased WIND Hellas for about 1 billion euros after weeks of negotiations with the shareholders of WIND Hellas, and then on January 2, 2023 WIND Hellas merged into Nova, abandoning its own brand in favor of that of the acquiring company.

The economic recession in Greece caused Wind Hellas severe financial difficulties. Sawiris sold the assets of the holding company (Weather Finance III) to a group of creditors, the SSN Ad Hoc Committee. The group of senior bondholders established a new holding company (Largo Ltd.) which took full control of WIND Hellas in December 2010 and appointed a new board of directors.

WIND issue customers with telephone numbers that begin with either 693 or 690 followed by a seven digit subscriber number. As WIND also own Q Telecom, they can issue 699 numbers, but these are currently only allocated to new Q Card customers. Mobile number portability allows customers to port their numbers to and from all Greek networks so Wind customers can also have telephone numbers that were originally allocated to Vodafone or Cosmote.

In 2011 Vodafone opened talks with the owners of WIND Hellas regarding merging the two firms' operations in Greece, to better challenge market leader COSMOTE. In February 2012 Vodafone pulled out of the talks. On July 25, 2020 it was announced that Wind Hellas and Vodafone agreed to merge their base stations and antennas into a newly created company called Vantage Towers Greece in which Vodafone would hold a 62% and Wind 38%. This newly company will have 5.200 base stations. This idea comes after Vodafone Group decided to merge all its antennas and base stations that Vodafone is operating in Europe. On March 26, 2021 when Vantage Towers entered the Frankfurt stock exchange WIND Hellas sold its 38% stake to Vantage Towers for 288 million euros. Through the IPO that was launched WIND Hellas bought 100 million euros in shares.

On 25 April 2018, WIND CEO Nassos Zarkalis introduced the company's Internet Protocol television service called WIND Vision. It was the first Android TV set top box in Greece with Netflix integrated. Also, it was the first service offering ultra high definition television resolution with HDR 10 technology. The service offered more than 60 channels such as FOX, Disney Channel and National Geographic.