Rostelecom to acquire 25% of Svyazinvest (Russia)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Acquisition of 25% plus one share stake in the controlling stockholder, Svyazinvest, has been started by the giant Russian fixed line telephony provider, Rostelecom. Buying of stake in Svyazinvest from Moscow-based fixed line operator Comstar United TeleSystems has been agreed upon by Rostelecom with an investment of RUB26 billion (USD855 million).
51% of Rostelecom’s shares have been owned by a holding company for many national and large regional Russian telecoms assets, Svyazinvest. Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) has formally asked Rostelecom to approve the purchase; the state has endorsed the reorganization of Svyazinvest under the Rostelecom umbrella, to increase the holding company’s efficiency and reveal the true value of its assets.
Ratios for a planned stock swap between the subsidiary and eight regional fixed line operators have also been approved by the directors of Rostelecom last week.
Tele2 desires partnership with Russian Svyazinvest
www.WirelessFederation.com/news:? The mobile operations of Russia’s state-controlled telecoms holding, Svyazinvest will get an efficient partner in the form Swedish telecom operator Tele2 AB. The announcement was made by Tele2′s chief in Russia, Dmitry Strashnov. The main assets of Svyazinvest are seven regional fixed-line operators, but many of these have mobile businesses that together have 16 million mobile subscribers.
Restructuring Svyazinvest is currently going on by the Russian government and has also revealed its plans to merge the assets of the company into a single business and Tele2 is one potential partner with just over 15 million users in Russia.
According to Dmitry Strashnov, Tele2′s chief in Russia, the only efficient way to integrate Syvazinvest’s operations with Tele2′s would be using the Swedish company’s business model and managerial oversight.
Sibirtelecom completes DWDM roll out (Siberia)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The roll out of Digital Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology in Omsk, Novosibirsk and Novokuznetsk has been completed by Svyazinvest-owned regional operator Sibirtelecom.
By investing RUB111 million (USD3.76 million), the operator constructed a 161km of fibre-optic network. The entire work out is aimed at expanding network capacity and bandwidth availability.
The network had a data transmission capacity of 10Gbps and now it has gone up to 40Gbps after the upgrades. Russian vendor T8′s equipment has been used by Sibirtelecom for the network rollout.
Russian telco Svyazinvest aims for IPO in April 2011
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The structural reorganization of Russia’s state-run telecoms conglomerate Svyazinvest is scheduled to be completed by April 2011. The company also hopes to hold an initial public offering (IPO) to offload around 25% of the company.
Currently, Svyazinvest is combining long-distance operator Rostelecom with its seven ‘mega-regional’ operators to create a single, national network. The seven operators include Center Telecom, North-West Telecom, Volga Telecom, South Telecom, Uralsvyazinform, Siberia Telecom (Sibirtelecom) and Far East Telecom (Dalnevostochnaya)
25% stake to be sold by ER-Telecom (Russia)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 25 percent stake in Russian cable operator ER-Telecom is planned to be sold by its shareholders, however, the name of the potential investors has not been divulged. The capital injection is expected to help finance the company’s planned USD 500 million in CAPEX for the coming five years.
Plan for an IPO is also on the cards. The operator is active in 12 cities and plans to invest RUB 2 billion this year to expand to five more cities and a network footprint of 900,000 households.
According to the CEO of the company, Andrey Semerikov, the consolidation trend in the industry appears to be over with the focus on organic growth and the company would not shy away from any potential negotiations. There are rumors that big three operators in the market and Svyazinvest are interested in acquiring ER-Telecom.
Moscow capacity tripled by Rostelecom
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The overhaul of the Moscow traffic exchange has been completed by the Russian long-distance carrier Rostelecom resulting in the tripling of the capacity to 30Gbps in response to growing local internet traffic.
State-owned conglomerate Svyazinvest that holds controlling interest in Rostelecom forms a major part of the company’s restructuring plans.
With the aim to provide fixed line telephony, broadband and mobile services across the whole country, Svyazinvest has planned to combine its seven regional fixed line operators with Rostelecom
Megafon targeted by Russian state telco, Svyazinvest
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The state telecoms holding company Svyazinvest has shown its interest in buying mobile operator Megafon. Talks with Alisher Usmanov, owner of a 31.1 percent stake in Megafon are underway. The state is also interested in the blocking stake held by Alfa, part of Russian group Altimo.
Reorganization of Svyazinvest was approved by a government commission in May 2009. Since then, the purchase of a mobile operator to strengthen its operations is on the cards. Even AF Telecom Holding, managing Usmanov’s stake in Megafon, has expressed interest in cooperating with Svyazinvest. 31.1 percent stake in Megafon has been offered by the company in a joint venture created by Svyazinvest.
According to Russian minister of communications, Igor Shchegolev, the government would need to buy shares from Megafon’s other major shareholders, Altimo or TeliaSonera, but neither is willing to lower their stakes in Megafon. The Altimo and TeliaSonera deal needs approval by the Government Commission on Foreign Investments headed by the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Svyazinvest gets approval for stake sale (Russia)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: According to a media report, Russia’s economy ministry has approved the government purchase of Sistema’s holdings in fixed line group Svyazinvest and mobile operator SkyLink. The state will take on Sistema’s RUB26 billion (USD827.7 million) debt to Siberbank in order to acquire the conglomerate’s 25% plus one share stake in Svyazinvest and its 50% stake in SkyLink. The deal will also see Sistema’s fixed line subsidiary, Comstar UTS, take on a 23% stake in Moscow City Telephone Network (MGTS), owner of the capital’s fixed line network, bringing its total stake in the operator to 94.9%.
Cell Operators from St. Pete to Cross the Equator
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos are to discuss the entry of Russian mobile operators to Angola’s cell market at a meeting on Tuesday. SV Kapital, set up by a former aide to Svyazinvest’s director general, may become the first on the list. The company is set to put $100 million in the African business. Market watchers believe that MagaFon may join the St. Petersburg operator in the Angolan project.
President dos Santos is meeting Putin on Tuesday to discuss a possible entry of Russian mobile communications operators to Angola’s market, a source of Kommersant reported. Press services of the two presidents declined to comment information on Monday. Unofficial sources report that Putin may ask about issuing a second GSM license in Angola to the Russians.
SV Kapital is reported to be the major contender for the license. The company was established some six months ago by Vladimir Androsik, a St. Petersburg communications top manager. Androsik has worked at Telecominvest, Svyazinvest and its subsidiary Peterstar. The Russian set up his own business in January, keeping in close touch with Telecominvest. Cyrus-registered Eventis Telecom, co-owned by Androsik, set up the second GSM operator in Kyrgyzstan, Bimacom. MegaFon, a major asset of Telecominvest, has consulted Eventis in the Kyrgyz project.
Androsik says Angola is a very promising market with a low level of cell communications coverage and high growth rates.??? The businessman told Kommersant preliminary talks with the Angolan party had already been held but declined to name the companies or agencies. SV Kapital’s founder also said that the budget of the project would come to $100 million.
Angola has 2.3 million cell subscribers, which is 15 percent of the population. The communications market is controlled by Unitel, the sole GSM operator in the country. The number of subscribers in Angola goes up 100 percent annually.
Sources close to the project say that MegaFon might join SV Kapital in the project. MegaFon said yesterday they are not doing the Angolan project of SV Kapital so far.
Opinions have split on the future of Russian operators on Angola’s market. Oksana Pankratova from Comnews Research says SV Kapital follows the example of overseas operators which take risks and enter countries even with low living standards and unstable political situation.???
Quite on the contrary, Yuly Matevosov from Dresdner Bank’s analytical department believes that social and political problems may hamper cell business in Angola. Angola has been living in civil war for a number of years. Besides, examples of other African countries with natural resources-based economies show that stratification of the population there is enormous and a swift rise in demand on cell communications may soon end as most people will be unable to pay for it,??? he says.
Source- http://www.kommersant.com
