Comstar board approves loanTotaltele writes…Russian fixed-line telecoms operator OAO Comstar United TeleSystems said Friday that its board had approved a five-year credit facility of RUR26 billion ($1.01 billion) from OAO Sberbank at an annual interest rate of 7.6%.
Comstar said it would use as collateral a 17.3% stake in state telecoms holding OAO Svyazinvest plus a further 7.7% stake in that company owned by Comstar subsidiary OAO MGTS.
“We intend to use the credit line to finance our spending on telecommunications network development, including the refinancing of existing loans, such as the repayment of a $675 million six-month loan from ABN AMRO and Morgan Stanley, which we received in December 2006,” said Comstar’s Chief Financial Officer Nikolai Tokarev.
