Private equity groups Apax Partners and TPG are circling Wind Hellas, Greece’s third-largest mobile phone operator, only two-and-a-half years after selling the debt-burdened company to Egyptian entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris.

Wind Hellas has put itself up for sale after losing market share and hitting trouble servicing its €3.2bn ($4.6bn) of net debt. It is owned by Weather, Mr Sawiris’s Mediterranean telecoms group, through which he also controls Wind in Italy and Egypt’s Orascom.