Telstra warns shareholders that they may receive an unsolicited offer to purchase their Telstra shares at a heavily discounted price.

The potential offer, from a company called Share Express Ltd, could see some shareholders invited to sell their shares for just $2.72, or just 59 per cent of the closing Telstra share price of $4.62 on 1 May 2008.

Telstra Company Secretary, Carmel Mulhern, said the offer had no association whatsoever with Telstra, the Government's T3 Sale Company or with the final payment required to be made by holders of T3 instalment receipts.

"We understand that this offer has been mailed to less than one per cent of our shareholders," Carmel said.

"We recommend that any shareholder who receives the offer should not accept it without seeking independent financial advice, because the offer price is far below the current market price. If you owned 1,000 shares and accepted this offer, you would receive about $1,900 less than you would selling them on the market at yesterday's closing price of $4.62," she said.

Carmel said Share Express recently purchased a copy of Telstra's shareholder register.

"Under the Corporations Act, Telstra must keep a register of its shareholders. This is a public document. Telstra is unable to prevent any party from inspecting or purchasing a copy of our share register," Carmel said.

Carmel said that Share Express has only purchased Telstra's register of shareholders, not the register of T3 instalment receipt holders.

"To our knowledge, the offer is only being sent to owners of fully paid ordinary shares, not T3 instalment receipts," Carmel said.

Carmel reminded shareholders that Telstra's share price is published in the financial pages of major daily newspapers and is available from Telstra's on-line Investor Centre (www.telstra.com.au) and the ASX (www.asx.com.au) website.

Telstra recommends that shareholders wishing to sell their shares for any reason should contact their broker or financial adviser.